I think the source of the confusion is Alternative Talent players. Under AFL rules an alternative talent player takes a Category B spot, but can play senior football at any time unless the club elevates a mid-season rookie (ie they can play for the first half of the season even if there are no main list spots available due to LTI or what have you).
However, Alternative Talent only covers players who have come from a recognised elite sport program, which is basically to say it’s the rule that covers poaching NRL players.
So there is a very specific kind of category B rookie that can be elevated to play without needing an LTI spot open but there are zero of those kind of rookies in the league at the moment.
iirc this question arose in 2015 . Hirdy mentioned in a presser that we had this great “oirish” rookie, and we needed to find some way to play him.
Bingo he got a game, after they realised that you can upgrade a rookie via the AFL Midseason Rookie Upgrade rule after round 11.
Something like that . Right ?
Well lets hope the big Cox doesnt reprise the best game of his AFL career on Tuesday. I can see that desperado Bucks trying that one again.
Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses? You been trying to coach for so long now Oh, you’re a hard one I know that you got a Brownlow The midfield thats pleasin’ you Can’t win on its own.
You could almost say the same for Tippa then as he just turned 24
There has been plenty of mid 20’s to debut. Frankly if they can play a role and contribute to the team winning then it doesn’t matter how old they are aka James Podsiadly
I agree. Its not that he is too old to debut, its that he will probably get one chance to get games at AFL level, if he secures a place in the side, OK, but if not its hard to see the club persisting. To be fair though he needs about 4 games to get used to the level, surely not just one game as a fill in and be judged on that.
Heh, well that explains it. As I said, I really didn’t pay that much attention but thinking about it, it doesn’t make much sense anyway so it makes sense it a Blitzism.
I think the confusion came about when we had only 39 on the main list, and therefore could upgrade any rookie at any time a couple of years ago.
Also, we had Rainer as a Cat B at that time, who came on as a CatB with an “Alternate Sport” classification, … which IIRC, could also be elevated at any time because of that.