The rookie benfti list one step closer to reality

Football Discussion Dustin Fletcher Hangar
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When you say something like this:

The AFL as custodians of the game have allowed it to ruin the spectical is all I'm saying.

It sounds like HM and Benfti are talking about two different games. Similar games, but with different rules. Maybe the AFL should split off into two leagues, at all levels. Like Parkour and Free Running. Basketball and Streetball. Or whatever.

Those that want the Harlem Globetrotters and those that want the Sydney Swans. All players can make their own choice and all fans can make their own choice regardless of what circumstances they were brought up in.

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Great article, hopefully Goodes can use his profile for real issues rather than calling out teenagers in the crowd. I hope he sees it and jumps on the bandwagon.

I think the AFL are doing their typical lip service, there ain’t not money to line their pockets from kids in the NT. Breaking into the lucrative international market is a different story though. Hence their lack of anything on the matter.

I really thought think the AFL need to redo their list rules and process etc.

Having zones for city kids either has to go one way or another not half assed like now. Each gets a zone or nobody does. I think nobody is better for the city and target the country areas for zones. In particular indigenous like Benfti has indicated, really gets the clubs involved in the areas.

The second is they need to readjust the rookie list and main list rules. It would suck royally if Tippa got drafted to another club. Not just because blitz would go into meltdown, but because Essendon has put in the work with him, he has worked hard at the club and both should get the rewards. Not some club like Geelong or Hawthorne coming in at the last minute and potentially sending the kid backwards.

I would like to see the following changes.

Rural selection zones across Australia.

Three tiered rookie list

  • first part is the usual rookie draft type players (4spots)
  • second is international and beyond traditional pathway players (2spots)
  • third is an indigenous rookie list (4 spots)

Next I would like to see an increase of the main list by 2 to 4 players. I think there is too much pressure on the young players to fast track their development or else they are cut. They need a slower start, this should also help clubs have less draft misses by slowing lover development times.

Next club need to have priority access to their VFL talent that missed the other methods of recruitment. Tippa would be an example, so too would Crameri, ZOB. Clubs could then give those kids who take more time a chance to build a career through the VFL/SANFL/WAFL etc under their tuteledge without worrying about loosing them to another club and hence giving a chance for them to put more effort into it.

Each of the changes would add more reduced risk on drafting indigenous kids to the clubs and even VFL might make it easier for kids to have a rack without being put into bad situations as well.

Either way great article Ben!!!

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As with all sport I want to see it played at the highest level possible. The likes of Rioli who does amazing things at the highest is all the more impressive for it.

Kids who have freaky tricks but can’t compete at the highest level should do tours of their flashy tricks like those basketball mixtapes or crusty demons of dirt.

Sport trumps spectacle in the long run.

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Is the risk that if the AFL intervene earlier in the NT etc and start implementing the processes/skills etc required to make it in today’s AFL, that the flair and excitement we are after would just be removed at an early age and all players turn into TAC clones?

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I do agree with what you're saying fwiw, but.

The AFL as custodians of the game have allowed it to ruin the spectical is all I’m saying.

Hmm just dropped my thoughts on the state of the game thread on rule interpretations being a big part of this. Prior opportunity and “rewarding the tackler” is the core of this in my opinion.

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You can watch NT Thunder play NEAFL regularly on NITV, the Indig SBS station.

I remember going to the Tiwi GF about 15 years ago; the skills shown in wet, slippery conditions were amazing, those blokes picked the ball off the ground at full pace like it was a dry day.

Defensive skills back then though, were almost non-existent; no one tagged (even though there was fierce tackling happening), or blocked or shepherded - it was a free for all.

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Is the NTFL still shown on telly at all? 7mate need to get on to that for “summer footy”

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If you get the chance to visit the top of Australia or the outback settlements anywhere, take the opportunity to watch Indiginous kids play footy or any sport.

I love watching little league and you can see some kids with natural talent and everyone having fun. But it is a little structured as you would expect and little teamwork.

In Arnhem Land where my Grandkids go to meet family and learn their culture, the kids playing footy show exceptional skills, with hand and foot, and have a great aptitude for playing team footy. I reckon, I could take a team of 9 years olds from there and they would whip any under 11 team going around in Melbourne.

Perhaps we need to have an another “stolen generation” forced into footy academies at an early age. Perhaps maybe though if you did that then the silky skills would not develop and they would become just like little league.

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Personally I kind of agree with Ben here. Only one team a year is going to win the flag, and if you're not going to do that I'd much rather at least watch a good game than the current boring as bat**** stuff some clubs are serving up.
If the AFL had the guts to actually challenge poor governance this wouldn’t be true.
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Why dont the AFL set up an academy in the NT? Get them climatised to the expectations.

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If scintillating offensive footy by inventive and brilliant players won games in today's AFL, then every club in the league would be trying to play scintillating offensive footy and would be drafting inventive and brilliant players.

Instead, they’re all trying to play disciplined, structured, defensive, high-pressure footy, and they’re drafting blokes with good engines and good mental focus who can stick to a task and a gameplan all afternoon. This should tell you something about what every club in the league believes wins games right now.

The Ablett vs Salmon game was damn near 20 years ago now. Things have changed since then. Yeah, everyone would love to see that sort of footy being played again, but how many of them would like to see their team playing that sort of footy and consistently losing week after week to dour, disciplined sides that run hard defensively? There’s loads more people who watch footy to suppot their club than there are who watch footy out of aesthetic appreciation of highly skilful performances (raises hand), and there’s only so much suckitude these people can put up with for the sake of a highlight reel.

Mere brilliance does not win games in today’s AFL, simple as that. There’s no point pretending otherwise, clubs aren’t going to voluntarily start playing more exciting improvisational one-on-one football out of the goodness of their hearts, cos it simply means they’ll lose a lot. That’s why the solution to the NT problem has to involve getting these kids into a better development environment with better coaching sooner, so they can learn what they need to know to even give themselves a chance at succeeding in modern footy. And yeah, teaching them to play modern footy without stifling their carefree creative play is going to be a hard thing, but it must be done, cos gameplan knowledge and defensive focus is what blokes get drafted on these days, and if the top end kids don’t develop these skills somehow, then the problem will only get worse.

Kind of sounds like the Knights era. Indeed, people didn’t like that too much.

Personally I kind of agree with Ben here. Only one team a year is going to win the flag, and if you’re not going to do that I’d much rather at least watch a good game than the current boring as bat**** stuff some clubs are serving up. Essendon being the prime example.

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I do agree with what you’re saying fwiw, but.

The AFL as custodians of the game have allowed it to ruin the spectical is all I’m saying.

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If scintillating offensive footy by inventive and brilliant players won games in today's AFL, then every club in the league would be trying to play scintillating offensive footy and would be drafting inventive and brilliant players.

Instead, they’re all trying to play disciplined, structured, defensive, high-pressure footy, and they’re drafting blokes with good engines and good mental focus who can stick to a task and a gameplan all afternoon. This should tell you something about what every club in the league believes wins games right now.

The Ablett vs Salmon game was damn near 20 years ago now. Things have changed since then. Yeah, everyone would love to see that sort of footy being played again, but how many of them would like to see their team playing that sort of footy and consistently losing week after week to dour, disciplined sides that run hard defensively? There’s loads more people who watch footy to suppot their club than there are who watch footy out of aesthetic appreciation of highly skilful performances (raises hand), and there’s only so much suckitude these people can put up with for the sake of a highlight reel.

Mere brilliance does not win games in today’s AFL, simple as that. There’s no point pretending otherwise, clubs aren’t going to voluntarily start playing more exciting improvisational one-on-one football out of the goodness of their hearts, cos it simply means they’ll lose a lot. That’s why the solution to the NT problem has to involve getting these kids into a better development environment with better coaching sooner, so they can learn what they need to know to even give themselves a chance at succeeding in modern footy. And yeah, teaching them to play modern footy without stifling their carefree creative play is going to be a hard thing, but it must be done, cos gameplan knowledge and defensive focus is what blokes get drafted on these days, and if the top end kids don’t develop these skills somehow, then the problem will only get worse.

So you are saying its Paul Roos fault?

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If scintillating offensive footy by inventive and brilliant players won games in today’s AFL, then every club in the league would be trying to play scintillating offensive footy and would be drafting inventive and brilliant players.

Instead, they’re all trying to play disciplined, structured, defensive, high-pressure footy, and they’re drafting blokes with good engines and good mental focus who can stick to a task and a gameplan all afternoon. This should tell you something about what every club in the league believes wins games right now.

The Ablett vs Salmon game was damn near 20 years ago now. Things have changed since then. Yeah, everyone would love to see that sort of footy being played again, but how many of them would like to see their team playing that sort of footy and consistently losing week after week to dour, disciplined sides that run hard defensively? There’s loads more people who watch footy to suppot their club than there are who watch footy out of aesthetic appreciation of highly skilful performances (raises hand), and there’s only so much suckitude these people can put up with for the sake of a highlight reel.

Mere brilliance does not win games in today’s AFL, simple as that. There’s no point pretending otherwise, clubs aren’t going to voluntarily start playing more exciting improvisational one-on-one football out of the goodness of their hearts, cos it simply means they’ll lose a lot. That’s why the solution to the NT problem has to involve getting these kids into a better development environment with better coaching sooner, so they can learn what they need to know to even give themselves a chance at succeeding in modern footy. And yeah, teaching them to play modern footy without stifling their carefree creative play is going to be a hard thing, but it must be done, cos gameplan knowledge and defensive focus is what blokes get drafted on these days, and if the top end kids don’t develop these skills somehow, then the problem will only get worse.

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I think we can agree that we want both really HM, to play scintillating footy and win doing so. Last time I checked most games in the top end had a winner at the end of it and if your team lost, you still got to see some cool ■■■■.

I fucken hate this defensive footy, though I might like it more if we won lol.

Best game of footy I ever saw was the one where Ablett sr kicked 14 and salmon kicked 10 and we won

23.18.156 to 19.18.132

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Sorry ben, but my impression is that the majority of people don’t go to the footy hoping to watch scintillating explosive skills and spectacular play. They go there hoping to watch their team win.

In pretty much every team sport these days, science, organisation, and gameplan trump individual brilliance on-field more often than not. It’s the old team of champions vs champion team thing. It’s not going to change any time soon.

There’s more than a lot of truth in that. But skilful players make good players and good players make for a good team. Provided that those skilful players have the capacity for the discipline required and can learn and adhere to game plans and the one million little things.

Agree that list size and structure are a major sticking point. Forgetting players who have come from the outback, look at how long Steinberg has taken, for example. Or Smack. List sizes seem quite small. I would have thought there would be room for another 5 or so players in there somewhere either rookie or senior. Not sure how they’d all go about getting a game in their respective state leagues each week, but I’m sure they’d slot in somehow.

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I’m slightly reassured by the realisation that the bit of the article that Ricky Nixon quotes approvingly is the bit I most disagree with.

Sorry ben, but my impression is that the majority of people don’t go to the footy hoping to watch scintillating explosive skills and spectacular play. They go there hoping to watch their team win.

In pretty much every team sport these days, science, organisation, and gameplan trump individual brilliance on-field more often than not. It’s the old team of champions vs champion team thing. It’s not going to change any time soon.

Where the article to some degree fell down, in my opinion, was in trying to focus the responsibility for top end guys not being in the AFL on the recruiters. That’s unfair, frankly. The fault is squarely in the lap of the AFL, but, well, given the article is being written by ‘AFL accredited journalists’, we probably couldn’t expect any better.

The system is set up in such a way that it makes indig kids from isolated communities unlikely to succeed in carving a long-term career for themselves. Small list sizes, mandatory list turnover, salary caps, the rookie list rules, all bias clubs against making long-term investments in blokes who have a high ceiling but carry a significant risk and will take years to make it in the best case. List spots are a precious resource, for a club that lives or dies by winning games (and for a recruiter who lives and dies by picking long-term players for his club), not taking the indig kid is simply playing the percentages. This is doubled down by the whole focus on gameplan and structure - expose a TAC Cup kid to an AFL on-field gameplan, and his previous several years of experience in an intensive, structured coaching and football environment mean he’ll adapt in a year or two. A kid who was running around in the freewheeling NTFL or whatever is much less likely to. And the reason for that is that the NT kid doesn’t get the same level of coaching as the TAC Cup kid does, and NT development is the AFLs responsibility.

Ben’s academy proposal alleviates some of the problem. Right now EFC have put several years of development into Tippa, and our reward for that will probably be seeing Port Adelaide or the Dogs or someone draft him ahead of us come November. but that’s exactly the development Tippa needed to turn himself from a talented fat kid running around doing the occasional jaw-dropping cameo at u18 level, into a legitimate high-quality VFL player and prospective draftee. But the club has put all this work into him, employed him in an indig development role, mentored him, etc etc etc, purely out of the goodness of their hearts (and, I strongly suspect, with the encouragement of his TAC Cup captain, one D Heppell). The club has invested a lot into Tippa (and they can be very proud of that) for no reward. Not many clubs have the ability or the inclination to do that. Not without incentives, at least…

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He seemed to be focusing in the style of the game than the racial problems that were the focus of the article.

Maybe they are linked?

Linked in the sense that clubs are too risk averse. But we can't change that. League just needs to even things out so a kid from the back of Burke isn't (comparatively) riskier than a kid from LA or Cork or Dubbo.
Or at least stop parading around once a year that they are all things to Everyman

You saw Mifsud’s comments. Not as many indig guys are getting cut! So it’s all good!

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Could they get an indigenous team in the VFL. A pathway that also gives them a support network

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He seemed to be focusing in the style of the game than the racial problems that were the focus of the article.

Maybe they are linked?

Nixon’s focus seemed to be on the style being worse to watch. My view is that the game plan has become more important than the individual skill. So yeah, there’s a clear link to indigenous opportunities, if people think you won’t be able to learn the game plan then you’re a probable liability on the field.