@THE_DON1 any thoughts on how this draft is shaping up in overall quality and depth compared to the previous two, and if there is speculation on the next 1-2 drafts?
Lions keep getting gifted f/s and academy prospects
Mean while our 2 f/s in daveys are more likely to be delisted
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Queensland will be the second best footy state in the country within the next decade imo. They already are in the women’s game and their under 17 boys just beat Vic metro. It’s great for the game as a whole, but at some point becomes an unfair advantage for the lions and suns.
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Yep Lions and Suns have best zones compared to other clubs which makes it unfair
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Allies should be excellent next year, but basically all the top end vic talent for next year wasn’t playing in those futures games.
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Just thinking over the past 2 years and the next two, Queensland will have drafted into the afl mostly as first and second rounders:
W.Ashcroft, Fletcher, Walter, Rogers, Read, Graham, L.Ashcroft, Lombard, Marshall, Annabelle, Uwland and i may be forgetting some others.
That’s about 7 top 15 picks, much better than w.a. Maybe in a decade or two’s time we could get a Vic v QLD state game which would be amazing. They don’t have amazing depth, but the quality is high, which is what matters more when putting together a state side.
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Yeah for sure. If the reports are true that AFL has surpassed rugby in QLD in terms of popularity at junior level then it becomes a numbers game really. Population in QLD isn’t that much lower than Vic, and has about as many people as WA and SA combined.
Yeah i was staggered by the number i saw the other day, that there are 43k auskick participants in Victoria which is a new record and 30k participants in QLD, remembering Victoria has a bigger population. All the other states are well below 20k i believe. @dmaplestone has spoken about the growth up there, not sure if he is aware of they new record statistic though, i know on the gold coast that have ran out of fields, so have to use school ovals after hours for all the participants they have now.
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Yep, this is correct. I posted about this recently on another thread I think. AFL certainly has a good grounding in SEQ, and its reach is spreading.
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I spend a fair amount of time talking to supporters of other clubs on their forums. The main argument the Lions and Suns supporters offer for the northern academies is the “go home factor” they suffer when drafting vic kids given the vast majority of drafted players still come from Victoria. So the argument is that they need to get priority access to QLD kids to create a level playing field. That argument will obviously get challenged if those auskick numbers flow through over the next decade and we end up with 20 or 30% of all drafted kids coming from QLD.
I do wonder if this “go home factor” and priority access is creating a solution to a problem that the industry itself has created. I follow the NBA, and those kids are much more happy to accept going anywhere around the country for the chance to play professionally. We seem to have just accepted that its okay for kids to demand a trade back to their home state, even after just one year in the case of JHF, and handed them the power to get wherever they want to go. I wonder if they would be more inclined to settle down and adjust if it wasn’t so trivial and normalised to demand a move.
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I think the ‘go home’ factor becomes significantly less appealing if players don’t get to pick the club they nominate. Oh you miss Victoria? North will be happy to have you
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Agree on all that, it’s ridiculous this ‘can’t move interstate’ and i also agree with drapersmullet, if they wanna go home, they shouldn’t be able to nominate a club they wish to get to.
It will be interesting when Queensland becomes too powerful, the solution might be like the swans suggested years back, to step out of the national draft and only recruit out of their own state/ zone. This has the advantage of them investing even more in their academies and producing even more talent from their state. The overflow of talent could end up back in the national draft for all other states/ clubs anyway.
Sydneys Mantra is pick the elite talent only from the academy then fill the list with desperate mature age rookies from interstate or DFA’s that just want to get on a list.
A couple of things:
- NBA players are paid far more, and the USA has more of a culture of moving around. Eg moving states for Uni or work.
- Any club can force a player to stay for their contract
- Personally I like we don’t treat footy players as slaves.
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Ah, that is rubbish. Warner was taken after Bryan. And they recruit players from their academy with late picks too. McDonald also wasn’t an academy player.
2nd rd pick
Cal has just dropped his August rankings
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Based on our likely spot in the draft and list needs, you think we’d look at one of Armstrong, Lalor, Allen, Travaglia or Berry.
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Armstrong or Lalor please!
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Fark you Collingwood for choking against the Swans.
I wonder what their chances are of getting a win against either the Lions or Melbourne are in their remaining two games.
The other reason I mention that is their pick is actually in Fremantle’s possession. I know it’s unlikely they’d reach and bid on Kako but there’s been some talk that they are keen on small forwards post Schulz and Walters.
That is if they don’t trade it out (Shai Bolton etc)
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