Did you have to ruin my afternoon?
Ultimately the AFL should completely can the academy and father/son system entirely and all prospects are dumped into the draft pool and first come first served.
I’d be willing to give up the romance of the father/son system to get a fair and equitable system in place rather than this complete nonsense they have now.
I am shocked
Seen one draft rating that has Gold Coast AFLW this year netting 6 of the top 30 talents (country-wide) from their Academy.
Trading away/sacking 20+% of their list might be their biggest challenge…
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I agree, i think they’ll want gold coast to win a flag before they reign it in though, as they made the mistake with restricting the giants access too early, when everybody thought they’d be a juggernaut.
There is also the argument that if the academies didn’t exist, we wouldn’t see so much talent coming out of the gold coast now anyway. Every player recruited out of Queensland means one less player is being taken out of the general draft pool, coz gc are breeding their own. Therefore more accessible talent to choose from for the southern clubs than before.
I also think once we start seeing the southern clubs putting resources into their nga academies it will even out, thankfully at Essendon we have a great zone with all the middle eastern talent playing in the EDFL, so we should really be investing money and nurturing this for a competitive advantage.
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Yep, I got to see Northern Saints U14 last year. Some of those middle eastern boys were scary big and damn talented too. Watching Hadfield U16 as well, some serious talent starting to come through. Would not mind at all if Essendon game the system and access the best of them each year for a few years until they turn the tap off.
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They only really help us if one of their parents were born overseas haha. Let’s hope we have a few more of those coming through.
Usually not a problem from what I hear in the crowd.
“Yallah, Yallah”
The Northern Saints, Pascoe Vale and Glenroy footy clubs are pretty much equidistant from my place haha.
Here’s hoping!
I can assure you we have a few more coming through. I think the Lebanese Muslims more came in the 90s to Australia and the Christian ones (the majority) came in the 70s. So most of those Muslim kids have at least one parent born overseas.
So plenty of the Muslim middle eastern kids playing at clubs like Pascoe vale, hadfield, northern saints, Dallas (a new club started last year), west coburg etc. with a lot of talent. It will be interesting to see our supporter base change over time too, we might become like Canterbury bulldogs in Sydney.
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And see Koby Bewick drafted by another club not thanks i rather keep the F/S rules
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Suck it up, I’d be happy killing the system completely. It’s an archaic nonsense.
Koby coming to us is probably going to be a big flop anyway.
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Im happy to fark off acadmeys but f/s should stay
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Nope, all out. F/S still leaves a ridiculously compromised system.
it’s not the 1980s, move on. Look at the Bulldogs, look at Collingwood and Brisbane. Getting priority access to the cream of the draft for dross picks.
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Koby Bewick to make his Calder Cannons U16 debut on 7th April.
Source: Strathmore FC Facebook page.
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How often does the u16 Coates League even play? Is it an every week thing?
I thought kids were mostly playing for their local clubs at that age. And a couple of freak ones play a few u18 Coates League games.
AFL clubs have become corporate, cloned copies of one another. No discernible personality aside from the colour of the guernsey. With minimal links to their illustrious 150 year histories.
Father/Son rule is one of the few things left in AFL football, which makes clubs what they should be. Family.
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And then we keep going with this ridiculous compromised system. Nick Daicos for a group of picks in the 40s. What a joke. Throw it in the bin.
I couldn’t care less about the draft
I think it’s fantastic seeing kids play for the club that their father played for.
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An NGA talent gets bid in the first round.
The club who has dibs cant match the bid with junk picks they need to use a first round pick.
If they don’t have one they they need to trade for one to use