Hey AFL decision makers,
I'm sure this has been something you've thought about in recent times, as we've seen particular teams benefit from their Academies/father-son pool. I believe the current system in place is inequitable and unsustainable for the health of the competition.
Teams that have benefited from the flawed system include:
- Collingwood: Received an influx of talent via father-son and Academy talen, that resulted in one and maybe more premierships. Received Darcy Moore, Daicos brothers, Brown brothers, Isaac Quaynor and will likely receive Tom McGuane and a couple of Academy players this year (Zac McCarthy and Jai Saxena), which allowed them to bypass last year's draft to trade for Dan Houston.
- Sydney: Received an influx of talent via their Academy system, which has resulted in them making finals almost every year for the past decade and making three grand finals in the past decade. Acquired elite talent such as: Heeney, Mills, Gulden, Blakey & Campbell via their Academy and will add Max King, Noah Chamberlain and Lachy Carmichael in the upcoming 2025 Draft.
- Essendon: Receiving NGA eligibility for Isaac Kako allowed Essendon to add a top 10 talent, without actually using a top 10 pick. They traded out their first-rounder from 2024 into 2025 and are now looking like they'll have two top 10 picks in this year's draft plus receiving a couple of extra first-round NGA talents in Adam Sweid and potentially Hussien El Achkar. This gives them an abundance of talent coming in relative to other clubs and they have an exciting father-son prospect in Koby Bewick for 2027, which will allow them to repeat the same process that they did with Kako.
- Brisbane: Similarly to Collingwood, their club captain is an All-Australian key defender that they received via their Academy in Harris Andrews, and have received a great crop of father-sons (Ashcroft brothers and Jaspa Fletcher). Their Academy is looking to produce the goods for them as well, with likely top five draft pick Dan Annable joining the club in the 2025 draft later this year.
- Gold Coast: The Gold Coast Academy appears to have become the most fruitful academy system of the lot, as they have added first team talent such as: Malcolm Rosas Jr, Joel Jeffrey, Ethan Read, Jed Walter, Jake Rogers, Will Graham, Bodhi Uwland, Leo Lombard & Alex Davies over the past five drafts. They also look likely to add tantalising talents in Zeke Uwland, Beau Addinsall & Dylan Patterson in the upcoming draft.
- Western Bulldogs: Have received an abundance of key position talent (Sam Darcy, Jamarra Ugle-Hagan, Jordan Croft) via NGA and father-son systems over recent years, which is arguably the positional talent that is most scarce and the type of talent that you can usually only acquire through utilising top 10 draft picks. They've also leveraged the system like other clubs to be able to double-dip in years that they've had prospects tied to them. For example, when they knew they had Croft as a father-son, they decided to trade ahead of where the bid would come for C,roft and as a result they were able to draft Ryley Sanders in the same draft.
If certain clubs are allowed to have a continuous production line of talent, then there'll be teams that will find it hard to not make finals, rather than the opposite. Meanwhile, the unintended consequences could see clubs stuck in the bottom four for even longer than they have in recent times (Carlton 2015-19, North Melbourne 2020-, West Coast 2022-), as the talent deficit will continue to grow larger.
Additionally, the value of draft picks across the board will continue to decline as the draft becomes further compromised. Late first-round picks continue to move back and now hold the equivalent value to a mid-second round selections, and second-round selections hold the equivalent value of third rounders. Teams will begin to pass on their third-round picks and fourth-round picks will cease to exist.
This will also see trades for veteran AFL players become more difficult, as a player that may have been worth third round pick 10 years ago, is now worth a second-round pick. A player that would've been worth a second-round selection a decade ago becomes worth a first-round selection in the near future, etc.
We've reached a point with Gold Coast's Academy system where they can effectively be one of the strongest teams in the competition, even if they lost their ability to draft players from the national pool. This means that for the Suns, draft picks have gone from prized assets to resources that have little utility for themselves, which is inequitable from other clubs in the competition.
The AFL needs to act as a ‘central bank' to ensure the value of draft picks doesn't depreciate further, or else the AFL will lose the draft altogether, and hence open up Pandora's box with a system that merely runs off academies. This will make equalisation far harder to control, especially as there is such a high concentration of clubs in Victoria, that would be all fighting for the same talent. Part of what makes this competition so great is that if the organisation gets it right off the field, they'll have a chance to compete and/or win premierships.
The solution
After all of that blabbering, I now present what I believe to be the best solution that is currently available, so that the league still has the opportunity to run and benefit from these Academies while also ensuring teams aren't stockpiling an abundance of talent.
I believe that clubs should only be eligible to access a maximum of:
- 2x top 10 Academy and/or Father-Son players over a rolling five-year period
- 3x top 20 Academy and/or Father-Son players over a rolling five-year period (1 additional pick on top of 2x top 10 players)
- 5x top 40 Academy and/or Father-Son players over a rolling five-year period (2 additional picks on top of 3x top 20 players)
- There would be no limit on Academy or Father-Son prospects that fall outside the top 40
Now to put these rules in an example, I'll use Brisbane to demonstrate how this would work for this upcoming draft...
Daniel Annable is a Brisbane Academy prospect that is almost certain to be picked in the top 10, however under these rules, the Lions wouldn't be able to select Annable as they have picked 2x top 10 players in the Ashcroft twins as father-on selections. Even if Annable was likely to fall between Picks 10 and 20, they still wouldn't be able to draft him, as they have picked the Ashcroft brothers and Jaspa Fletcher all as top 20 players in the previous five drafts. Because of this, Annable would then join the national pool and would be eligible to be picked by any club, and Brisbane would lose their right to match any bid that is put on him.
This helps restrengthen the diminishing talent in the national pool. It would also open up interesting strategies within list management teams, as under these rules, a team like Brisbane would have to seriously consider passing on a talent like Jaspa Fletcher to ensure they're able to get both Ashcroft brothers and have to ability to swoop on any future upcoming talent in the pipeline. This could allow for more situations similar to when Sydney passed up the opportunity to take Josh Dunkley as a father-son pick, allowing the Bulldogs to pounce and reap the rewards of Sydney's list management strategy.
Now of course, this can be fine-tuned to adjust the confinements of the restrictions. There is the possibility in this system to allow particular clubs to have more access to academies if that is deemed necessary. For example, because Geelong excel in recruiting, maybe they only should be able to recruit one top 10 pick, one other first round pick and conversely GWS might be eligible to get two top 10 picks, and two further first round picks over a five-year rolling period as they struggle recruiting veterans to their club.
We've seen in recent times that those prospects that have been a part of such academies have benefited relative to those in the national pool from the vast education provided to them in the following aspects: life lessons, professionalism in the working environment, dieting, & football skills.
Finding a solution to keeping the draft equitable will then help keep academies open. Keeping the academies open across the country will provide more opportunities to indigenous and other minority communities, as well as allow players to come from every part of the country with greater consistency. This will help the AFL achieve their main objective of having the academies, which isn't to strengthen the likes of a Sydney or Brisbane, but rather to widen the talent pool and 'steal' the best athletes from other codes.
