- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
A recent article in a Sydney paper has again ignited debate into the merits of a draft in the National Rugby League.
This is a concept that is a staple of all the major American sporting leagues and is a key feature of the AFL. It has never been implemented in rugby league in Australia, except for the 1991 NSWRL draft that was banned by the courts.
One of the biggest opponents to the draft in recent years has been David Gallop, but the former NRL CEO is now governing the FFA and new CEO Dave Smith seems to have an open mind about the concept.
Before we delve into the merits of a rookie NRL Draft it is important to understand why the 1991 draft failed.
Firstly, it is important to note that this was not a rookie draft, this was a draft of all the free agents or unsigned players prior to the start of the season.
Picking in reverse finishing order, teams had their pick of any player who was not contracted to a team for the 1992 season.
The most high profile opponent was Terry Hill. Hill had agreed to join Western Suburbs however he was drafted by the Roosters.
Hill did not want to play for the Roosters and was just one of over 150 players who commenced legal action arguing that the draft was a case of restraint of trade.
That is the players were not being able to ply their trade as they saw fit, instead they were being forced to work for another entity. After the NSW court system initially found this system to be legal, the Australian High Court found it an unreasonable restraint of trade.
The 1991 draft was created in order to even out the NSW Rugby League competition after years of imbalance. This was typified by clubs, such as Manly, recruiting players on big contracts even if they already had a star player in that position – with the sole purpose of preventing players from playing for rival clubs.
Some people argue that today’s competition is imbalanced, well the 80s was far worse. Unfortunately the 1991 Draft was implemented without the support of the players and as a result, it was doomed to fail from the start.
It is also important to note that a rookie draft will have absolutely no impact on players signing contracts with a new club a year before their current contract runs out.
To deal with that issue the NRL needs to implement a free agency signing period, much like the AFL and NFL in which off contract players are not able to sign with a new club until the final season of their contract finishes.
Supporters of a rookie draft claim that one of the major benefits is that a draft system helps even out the spread of young talent in the game. It helps clubs (such as the Melbourne Storm and Sydney Roosters) who cannot develop a large stable of young talent, ultimately the backbone of the club.
So a draft will provide these clubs with young talent and eliminate the need for these sides to throw huge wads of cash at young players that other clubs have developed. Hold on. A draft will stop clubs buying junior talent by giving them junior talent?
That hardly seems fair or a reasonable solution. More on this later.
Proponents of the draft also regularly cite the success of the drafts used in the American professional leagues and the AFL. Before I get to the AFL, it’s important to touch on the significant differences between American sport and the NRL.
Firstly, in the American major leagues the professional clubs do not develop their juniors, with the minor exception of baseball and ice hockey, which I will get to. Children play for club sides, which may or may not be affiliated with the local professional side, but you do not move up through the ranks of that side until eventually you play for the side professionally, like rugby league.
Instead if you have ambitions to play professionally you play high school sport with the goal of earning a scholarship at a college.
Once in a college team, players then hope to enter their respective draft, either when they are eligible or upon completion of their degree. As such, in this situation the college system is spending the money to develop the athletes and then the professional teams select them in the draft.
In hockey and baseball, athletes can choose to skip college and enter the minor leagues through the draft, here these athletes are selected by the professional side and, unless the athlete is of exceptional talent, they are sent to develop their games with a minor league club aligned to the respective major league side.
As I’m sure you can see, there is a clear trend present; teams have no involvement in developing players until they are drafted.
This is not the case in Australia. The NRL clubs have a direct involvement in the development in talent that grows up in their regions. Penrith spends money to develop players from the age of six, as does every other club.
Those Penrith juniors then have the potential to get picked for rep sides, Harold Matthews Cup in U16s, S.G. Ball in U18s, and then Holden Cup in U20s.
Once athletes have graduated from Holden Cup they then move into NSW or Queensland Cup or if good enough, they progress straight through to the NRL.
In the American system, the clubs start paying for their players’ development at the NSW Cup level and all levels of development below the NSW Cup level have no affiliation with the professional sides.
As I mentioned earlier, it would be unfair for clubs to have the talent that they have developed just taken away from them in a draft.
So, if the NRL wants to ensure that those with a large junior catchment area, such as the Broncos or Panthers, are not disadvantaged by the draft, they must remove all club affiliations from junior rugby league sides and completely fund junior rugby league in Australia.
The NRL might subsidise the clubs for their junior operations at the moment, but they do not have the sort of money to completely fund it. This would not work. Even if the NRL could fund the junior rugby league programs, the local clubs would be losing a significant connection with their youths.
This connection is one of the key way clubs create fans for life – not every junior can represent their senior club at NRL level, but every single junior can support their club at NRL level and this support is fostered by clubs from a very young age.
The NRL is struggling as it is to generate fans at the moment, such a change could be devastating for the clubs and could potentially alienate the fans of the future.
For more discussion on the merits of the NRL draft, see Part II tomorrow.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.