Listening to the Channel Seven commentary team, you get the impression that, maybe they’re not the biggest fans of the red vest.
I’m not either, and will look to present a discussion of why it needs to go. The other point for today’s article is the ongoing saga with Pat Dangerfield and some proposed tweaks I think need to be made to Free Agency to clean up the mess.
I will start with the easy one, the substitute vests need to go, hopefully at the end of the 2015 season. The primary reason it was brought in, if I recall correctly was to not disadvantage a team who has an injured player early in the game. Which is a nice idea in theory, but a large number of games don’t have players getting severely injured early, and it leads to the sub sitting idle for three quarters.
Coaches have clicked onto this, and use the green vest for debuting rookies/young players, and exposing them to limited game time to get a feel for the game. It is not ideal, but the strategy is sound, bringing on fresh legs late in a game will certainly add some spice if the player is capable of it. But with the AFL bringing in a cap on interchange anyway, is there really a need for the substitute vest?
Four players on the bench, and a maximum of 80 subs in a game, I am sure the coach and work out a scheme that will allow them to cover the loss of one injured player.
For fantasy football players, it will also stop all the guessing of which players are likely to be subbed when structuring up their teams. This may seem like a meaningless little game with a small prize pool, but I wouldn’t be surprised if fantasy football becomes a game in itself.
If the corporate bodies can find a way to make money from it, they will. A discussion for a different day I suspect.
My other discussion point for today’s article – free agency. In principle, I agree with the idea of Free Agency, just not the current implementation.
Firstly, the AFL Players Association needs to accept that if the clubs are going to invest a lot of time and money into a 17-year-old kid, they aren’t going to be keen on the idea of after six years they can walk out of the club without any compensation.
I am sure my employer wouldn’t be signing up to that deal, where they pay my wages and training only for me to walk other to a competitor without giving the company anything.
Also, the compensation picks need to be removed. If you lose an agent, your compensation is a vacancy on your playing list and some more salary cap room that has now become unallocated. Being a St. Kilda fan, I remember reading about the Nick Dal Santo trade where the clubs were working out if a trade or a compensation pick would be the better outcome for each club.
Sorry, we put him on the market, either pay the price for trading a listed player or let him walk as a free agent. You can’t have both, as it stuffs up the fundamentals of the system.
There is another problem with free agency. If you are a genuine required player at your club, and constantly getting games and being paid a ‘fair’ market value price, I don’t think you should be eligible for free agency at all. Go via the trade week system or join the draft if you want out.
The current system is outright just poaching clubs better players, and if I get my way in removing the compensation pick, the Adelaide Crows would be left without one of their better midfielders for nothing.
I would make eligibility for being a restricted or straight free agent based on their market value against their current contract (if they are being paid significantly lower than market value), and if they are getting a fair amount of game time and matches in the league side.
If they are running around in the twos as a backup player, then they go walk away as a free agent.
Equally if they are being squeezed by salary cap pressures and not interested in meeting the clubs demands, they can go. That way, it’s fair to the players, but also fair to the clubs.
So what do you think Roarers, and weight in my ideas? I know nothing will likely change, but maybe it will start a discussion that leads to a genuine solution.
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