He did say. He thinks that a well run club that hits the bottom should be able to be back deep in the finals after 2-3 years rather than 5-6 years, and that requires more player movement. I don’t think that’s what would happen, but that’s the rationale.
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So it’s not specifically AFLX, but I HATE the idea of a mid-season draft. Free agency is bad enough for encouraging a spinning wheel of players and clubs, but MSD is many times worse. It just strips away that link between player and club so much more callously and makes footy look like some desperate slave market.
How can a supporter identify with someone for 3 months of footy? Don’t the AFL see what a joke the NRL is with its team captains saying how much they love their club but they’ll be leaving to love another club in a fortnight? How depressing must it be to see that player star for you, knowing he is up against you soon during the very same season?
We have a member-based club system, at least for all the anchor clubs keeping the League going. Not unattached millionaires shifting teams between states. Members join for success but also to be part of the journey. Like Hirdy says, most of us are “lifers” and it would be nice to keep players with us for at least a season.
The alternative, often promoted by the media, is the fascinating deals and opportunities available in moving human resources around the AFL chessboard. Ruckman injured? Trade with a team who has two! It sells papers but it scrapes away sentiment for our boys. Not only is there a media profit motive for MSD, but many in the media just don’t care like us. They are former coaches and players and football is a business to them. Often they have worked for 2 or more clubs and the bonds for them are weaker. I understand that but I want them to understand supporters.
In footy, I buy into the fantasy. The history, the rivalries, the way yelling another man’s name out in public is not weird. I love the father-son rule, the original guernsey, footy cards, player numbers on jumpers. If Wanganeen left for more money, I don’t want to know. Tell me he left to help his old club when it was in need. Players mean something to me. Don’t turn them into hack cameo artists I have to boo then cheer in a fortnight.
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Brilliant post.
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Superb post. Exactly how I feel.
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The last time we had a mid season trade worked an absolute treat for the club when they traded out two club stalwarts and premiership players in Steve Carey and Peter Bradbury for those two mercenaries from Collingwood in 1986 who lasted only half a season before they were shipped off to the fledgling Bears.
And also ask Richmond and Collingwood people how successful their mid year trade wars were back in the early eighties when they kept stealing players from one another which almost sent both clubs broke.
Yeah! Great idea Gil. What a wonderful legacy this ■■■■■■■ is going to leave behind when he finally departs the game.
He’d be best to heed the lessons learnt of a bygone era if he had any brains about him.
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so…
- clubs don’t want it
- do players want it? I’d be surprised if they do, because it simply creates more instability for them
- fans? I’d be confident if they did a fan survey an overwhelming majority would vote against it.
■■■■■■ hell…it’s a joke
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But who makes the rules…
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Even if he thinks his intentions are good, he’s still a ■■■■
Edit: If they want to bring anything in, I think it should be a mid season draft and have some restrictions in place, like:
- players have to be above the base draft age (ie. they’ve been overlooked before)
- clubs can only draft a maximum of 1 player each
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I’d have no issue with a mid season draft, although I don’t think it’s actually necessary. A mid season trade period is just insanity though. Unfortunately the only person who seems to disagree is the one that matters in this case
Well if the majority of supporters are like me and would rather shave their balls with barbed wire than have anything at all to do with AFLX then yes, I’d say there’s not a lot of support for it.
It’s just another indication of how much Dill McC0ckring and his buttboys regard the AFL as little more than their personal toy set…
Well,… at least the bounce is to stay.
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“Well we conceded the bounce, so as a trade-off we’ll run with a twilight GF. You can’t have it all you people…”
It’s like he’s selling some bullshit pyramid scheme, and I ain’t buying it.
It’s always about the bottom clubs moving up, but never about the good clubs moving down…
By his logic, a club at the bottom, with no hope of finals is going to be able to lure top talent, from the top teams, on the eve of the finals? I’d suggest it’s more likely to have the opposite effect.
Do they think these things through?
In all seriousness, has something saga/ sexual assault / gambling been in the press, because it looks like a diversion. All I can think it’s to avoid scrutiny in the Mark of the Year comments From Howe.
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“How can we make the bye weekends more interesting?”
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I think more movement will make things worsee for currently struggling clubs. Just like FA.
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I don’t know about a diversion from a controversy, but i have noted that AFL releases and news like this is coinciding with cricket news. Are they having a biggest ■■■■ contest with CA?
Just prior and just after the English ream arrives the AFL leaks fixture details
The day the Australian squad is released the AFL release the AFLX fixture
Two days out from the first test and the banter is starting to ramp up so gil goes out to talk mid season trade period
AFL draft on during the first test
It’s curious
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I tend to agree. I think it’s true that more player movement would be necessary to speed up the turnaround for teams at the bottom of the ladder, you need substantial list turnover to go from worst to best and if that’s going to happen in only a few years, it can’t really be off the back of draftees.
In a lot of ways it’s a classic AFL strategic view. It makes a superficial kind of sense in terms of allocating resources, but overlooks the reality that said resources are players who are more than anything trying to win a flag.
If they are not careful the mid season trade game is dangerous…it opens up to some really dodgy dealings and loan type moves like they have in Europe…say we are going to push for a top 4 spot and West Coast are out…well we tell the Eagles that we want to trade in Nic Nat for the rest of the season and we will trade him right back to you during the summer.
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Nailed it with your post - It’s a mid-season draft and not a trade that is required - Limit it players who are 19+ who must play in a state league or lower - Over-age players in the TAC Cup are ineligible.
But is a state player that’s tearing it up at a lower level really going to make much difference to a team trying to climb the ladder in the back half of the year?
They won’t be as fit, they won’t have spent time training with the team or understanding structures.
I just can’t see how a ‘rookie’ can come in mid year and turn around a club that quickly.
Sure if this was soccer and there’s many clubs and leagues to choose from with no salary cap, it could work, but all the best players are already in the league already.