If you listened to many AFL coaches or commentators, the pending introduction of free agency was going to create a monster in the game that would see more poaching than an African game reserve and see the game turn into the English Premier League.
The first free agency period has now come and gone, and the noise made earlier in the year has proved to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors. The big bad monster was nothing but a myth, with moves no more spectacular than the usual trade periods of years gone by.
What it has shown is that the clubs were ultimately afraid of one thing – losing their power. The big feature of free agency is that it gave the players a lot more control over their playing futures.
Let’s not forget one important thing – while it might seem like great fun to us, this is someone’s livelihood we are talking about.
How would you like it if your boss wouldn’t allow you to leave and go to another company that is going to give you a better opportunity?
With the exception of Brendan Goddard’s move to Essendon (which as a Bombers fan I am absolutely delighted with), most of the free agency moves were made by those who were on the outer with their clubs, or had struggled to get a regular run in the top grade.
Clubs cannot cry foul here – if they were so important to you, why did they not play 20+ games this year? Why did you not re-sign them?
Plaudits need to be given to the AFL for the way they have structured the free agency. The classification of restricted and unrestricted free agents gave a good balance of freedom to the club and the players.
It was very interesting to note that with the restricted free agents, not once was there a situation where the original club chose to match the bid made by the new club. Again, if the player was so important, why did they not fight to keep them?
With all of this out of the way, we can now look forward to the draft for this year, and the 2013 season.
TC
Guest
Kristin great to hear from someone knowledgeable who is on the ground. We regularly get Sydney fans of other sports posting on the Roar telling us that they have never, ever seen anybody kick a Sherrin around Sydney in their whole lives. From that, the following pearls of wisdom follow in rapid succession: 1. most of the AFL's 700,000 members are either pets or deceased people. 2. the AFL lies about its attendances (as if they need to) 3. a friend of a friends of a friend's child was included in the auskick figures just because someone turned up to their school to talk about Auskick. etc, etc Interestingly, only one major sporting body publicly releases its annual report and audited financial statements, every year. TC
Nostradamus
Guest
I assume there's no story in the telegraph and if the AFL overreact to the story they will get even less coverage next year or have to pay more. There should be an enquiry into how media organisations squeeze coverage for advertising tradeoff esp in the hot Sydney football landscape.......
The_Wookie
Roar Guru
being reported in the Advertiser that it may be quite pear shaped indeed.
Kristin Carville
Roar Rookie
Well I think I can speak on this with some qualification since I live in Western Sydney, play AFL and am involved in my clubs committee. AFL in Western Sydney is strong on all levels, and I can confirm that there has been an increase in participation in both a junior and senior level. Western Sydney based teams have had strong performances in the Sydney AFL with many making the finals ahead of their inner city rivals. In fact, one of the 2 Sydney based teams playing in the NEAFL against the GWS, Sydney, Gold Coast and Brisbane reserve grade teams is based in North West Sydney. To me it seems that journos like Masters and Phil Rothfield just cant handle that AFL is such a nationally popular game, and that membership and attendance numbers are much higher in AFL. They wish they could beat their chest saying NRL is the premier code when they cant.
mds1970
Roar Guru
My Twitter feed is going ballistic with a rumour that Adelaide haven't declared a third party payment to Kurt Tippett in their salary cap. The plot thickens....
Brewski
Guest
IMO, this is wrong, the thread was closed down because of posters claiming things that are patently false, yes, you can ignore them, or yes you can refute them. Sometimes i like to refute them, and whats more, if they are refuted with proof, they think, before they write the same crap again. And in this instance i would like to refute one more claim by a certain poster, who posted this after TC claimed (and is dead right) the AFL appears to be the only big sporting body that even bothers publicly releasing its annual report and audited financial statements, every year, not occasionally, but every year. The certain poster responded with this ridiculous link claiming this to be a annual report……………………… “Geez you are resorting to straight out BS now. http://www.nrl.com/portals/nrl/RadEditor/Documents/State_of_the_Game_2012.pdf “………… Its pretty sad that this poster thinks that this qualifies as a annual report, when quite clearly their are no financials at all involved.
Horatio
Guest
Are you from the Herald or the NRL? This Masters article needs to be slammed in any manner possible...
TomC
Roar Guru
I would discourage you both from carrying on another discussion from a closed down thread onto a totally unrelated article.
Horatio
Guest
I note the Age headline for the same article has "Auskick putting Sydney kids off" which is another false conclusion drawn from the report. The AFL Auskick program introduces kids in a safe environment to the game hoping they get an interest and hopefully they play. It may be underachieving on the second aspect (up till now) but certainly kids that have hardly heard of AFL now have a better idea its part of the sports menu.
Horatio
Guest
Will the Adelaide media shut up now the AFL is conducting an investigation about irregularities in the Adelaide Tippett contract about a gentlemeans agreement to allow him to go home...
Nostradamus
Guest
I havent got time to write a separate article and the discussion closed 2 days ago but obviously Masters hasnt been to plagiarism school...TOMC???
Matt F
Roar Guru
I agree with you. The free-agency period has worked well. My main issue is with teams getting comensation picks. It's not really free agency if the club still gets compensation. The compensation picks disadvantage the clubs that weren't involved in the deal. Take the Goddard trade for example. Essendon get Goddard for nothing bar his salary, St Kilda get an extra pick in the first round that appears from nowhere (pick 14 though they've recently traded it) and every club with a pick below St Kilda gets unfairly pushed down the draft order. That doesn't seem fair on the other 16 clubs
TomC
Roar Guru
Well I'm stumped. What does this have to do with free agency?
Nostradamus
Guest
Tragically this discussion was shut down but Roy Masters must have read it on Roar and managed to write a column about it http://www.smh.com.au/afl/afl-news/study-slams-afls-takeup-figures-in-west-20121023-283jn.html THe SMH headline on the front page no less says AFL lying about numbers in battle of the West. Nowhere in the article does it say that the AFL are lying or the report doesnt say it either. The AFL measures its numbers from fee paying Auskick members and that is up and thats they way they have always measured it. The report also says club numbers are down. Overall the number of participants is up, Masters again writes from memory obviously repeating the lie that the AFL wanted to put posts on Birchgrove Oval which the NSW AFL has refuted saying the grounds in the LGA were up for grabs and they put in a bid.as all codes did. The only liar is the editor who put the headline and Masters himself. Maybe the AFL will succumb and put advertising in the SMH as well as the News Ltd papers but what this country needs is a stronger Press Council.
mds1970
Roar Guru
Dragging the trade period over three weeks has had more of an impact than free agency. As you mentioned in the article, very few free agency signings happened; and Brendan Goddard was the only significant movement. Even GWS, which had the option of uncontracted player signings for this season, didn't make any. But trade 3-weeks has certainly been active. In the years before GWS and Gold Coast came in, the trading period was virtually silent; there was one year in which only a handful of trades were made. Now there's plenty of movement - and the Kurt Tippett saga is ongoing.
TomC
Roar Guru
Far too early to tell, in my opinion. I've actually been surprised by how many players have moved under free agency, and I suspect the effects will snowball as players approaching FA eligibility in seasons to come will get into the habit of casting around for better offers from better clubs. Already I think there are signs that the poorer clubs will haemorrhage players to the wealthier clubs, with Goddard moving from the Saints to the Bombers, and Pearce and Chaplin from the Power to the Dockers and Tigers respectively. The only way the Power could entice Angus Monfries was (apparently) by offering him a deal well above his salary at Essendon. Certainly clubs like Essendon that are well resourced and operate in significant football markets with many opportunities for third party deals stand to benefit from FA. The club that I support, the Brisbane Lions, will rightly be very nervous over the next few years as their young stars approach free agency eligibility.