Melbourne, Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs have no one else to blame than themselves for the fact they have each lost a talented young player.
Expansion club Greater Western Sydney has developed a clever strategy of recruiting uncontracted players, and it was one that the existing clubs never thought they would do.
Melbourne chief executive officer Cameron Schwab, who sat on the working party that helped setup the expansion rules, indicated the rules were not designed to allow players of Tom Scully’s age, at 20, to be raided.
“I think the system is being used in a way that it wasn’t intended,” Schwab said.
“I think the system was put in place to allow the club to fill out its list with big senior bodies because they were going to have a group of kids playing for them.
“What they’ve done is signed with their first three selections three kids (Scully, Callan Ward and Phil Davis).”
But that is just the genius in the GWS plan.
So instead of recruiting a bunch of uncontracted 25-year-old players, who might play 100 games for GWS, they went for the younger players and have got players in the form of Scully, Ward, Davis and former Docker Rhys Palmer, who could become 150- to 200-game players.
Rumours last night at the AFL Players Association Awards night that former Brisbane Lion and AFLPA president Luke Power was on the verge of joining GWS reveals the next piece of the puzzle.
GWS will hunt players on one maybe two-year deals that will play as those “big senior bodies” while the likes of Scully, Ward, Davis and Palmer grow into those roles.
Chad Cornes and Dean Brogan have been linked to GWS also.
GWS coach Kevin Sheedy failed to put a line through recruiting Brendan Fevola and after St Kilda parted way with four players on Saturday evening, there could be a chance a Stephen Baker- or Andrew McQualter-type player might end up at the Giants as well.
The so called “steering group” for the expansion rules should have been more thorough and looked at all possibilities.
What they have created is a loop hole for GWS to pinch talented two and three year players for struggling existing clubs and they will complain but tragically they only have themselves to blame.
One simple clause along the lines of, “Players drafted in National Drafts, after and including 2008, cannot be recruited as uncontracted players,” would have saved the Bulldogs, Crows and Demons a lot of disruption during 2011 and ultimately heartache since the conclusion of the home-and-away round.
September 14th 2011 @ 12:12pm
The Cattery said | September 14th 2011 @ 12:12pm | ! Report
GWS has just annoucned that James MacDonald is to come out of retirement to play one final year, while also being an assistant coach.
By my reckoning, that’s now 4 oldies playing one final year, while also being on the books as an Assistant Coach.
Interesting approach from Sheeds.
September 14th 2011 @ 1:23pm
Andrew "Money Bags" Demetriou said | September 14th 2011 @ 1:23pm | ! Report
What chance did the establish clubs have in a say in what the new clubs would get, none.
AFL or Andrews Football League is so corrupt at the moment its insane the Dees tried to get Scully on third party payment the AFL squashed it!!
VFL should of never turned professional its killed the game and now it’s turning into the likes of the EPL, NBA etc where the haves dominate and the have nots make up numbers..
September 14th 2011 @ 3:08pm
Seano said | September 14th 2011 @ 3:08pm | ! Report
i hope they make power the capt, it will kill scully to do all that media in the first year!
September 14th 2011 @ 9:46pm
Lachlan said | September 14th 2011 @ 9:46pm | ! Report
GWS, i believe, nthere approach to recruiting players is alot better than how GC handled it, And as for vics who thing its terrible to c scully and young superstars leaving victoria, suck i up, its footy, national footy
September 15th 2011 @ 10:53am
stabpass said | September 15th 2011 @ 10:53am | ! Report
They are really going for experience, much more so than the GC.
September 15th 2011 @ 10:56am
Johnno said | September 15th 2011 @ 10:56am | ! Report
Lachlan i find AFL a boring sport and saw a few AFL swans matches in the 90’s and i find the sport boring, i would not care if AFL did not exist, and am annoyed GWS has come to sydney and l hope it fails.
September 15th 2011 @ 12:31pm
stabpass said | September 15th 2011 @ 12:31pm | ! Report
So i take it, you will not be buying a GWS family membership next year ?.
September 15th 2011 @ 12:33pm
Johnno said | September 15th 2011 @ 12:33pm | ! Report
No way stabpass i find AFL so boring i would rather watch ODI OR T20 cricket than AFL, and both those sports are so boring. Maybe AFL is better to watch than golf, but i would rather watch live table tennis or badminton than AFL, such a boring sport can not believe so many Australains supposedly loves this sport aussie rules.
September 15th 2011 @ 4:00pm
Hazey the Bear said | September 15th 2011 @ 4:00pm | ! Report
So….
Your take on Aussie rules football is that it’s…boring?