What if there was an NRL rookie draft?

Those who follow the NFL may have kept an eye on the 2017 draft that concluded recently.

As a fan, what an event! But the excitement, the drama and the anticipation of seeing whether the next megastar of the NFL will be drafted by your team got me thinking about why the NRL couldn’t have something similar.

The topic of a draft in the NRL has been floated before, yet it’s never seemed to amount to anything substantial. From what I can see, the Terry Hill debacle in the 1990s, when the NRL attempted a draft and the issue of the clubs losing the juniors they had developed, seems to be the main sticking point.

However, what’s to say a club wouldn’t get better talent coming into their team than what was produced in their own system? If the NRL took the management of that system away from the clubs and absorbed all of the costs associated, surely the NRL clubs would benefit and could focus purely on their senior squads.

This is how the NFL franchises are structured and it works very well.

So could a draft work for the NRL?

You can argue that the current youth system is working well quite well, with a clear path to first grade for the young stars. If an NRL draft system was implemented, the objective wouldn’t be about managing the youth talent better but would rather be implemented for the fans as well as to add additional support for the NRL by strengthening the performance balance between the teams.

Then there’s the associated financial benefit out of this process for the NRL. The opportunity to monetise the draft process would be substantial. There would be pre-draft shows outlining what each team’s needs were and speculating on which player your team would draft, as well as pick-by-pick coverage on the night of the draft.

There would be plenty of content and media available so that the fans knew everything they needed to know about the stars up for grabs in the draft, all of which would be driving huge advertising and sponsorship opportunities for the NRL.

To help make the concept of an NRL draft a little more tangible, imagine for a second that you are a Newcastle fan at the end of the 2016 season. You have just seen your team finish last and there has been hardly a premium signing made for the upcoming season. The offseason for you is pretty quiet footy-wise, and you enter the 2017 season thinking you will see much of the same.

However, if there was an NRL draft, there is an opportunity for optimism and an opportunity to secure the services of some of the hottest talent in the NRL to drive your 2017 season. All of sudden the offseason is exciting, and when the draft weekend actually rolls around you would be filled with anticipation and hope.

Did Newcastle use their first pick in the draft wisely? You would be hanging on every second of the coverage, and you might even outlay good money to attend the glitzy event.

(Image: AAP Image/Dean Lewins)

But what if your team is at the other end of the league? If you are a Bulldogs fan, your team made the finals but was knocked out week one by a red-hot Panthers team.

The major gap in the team and one of the main reasons the Bulldogs didn’t progress was an inability to score points and a lack of a genuine game manager. As the draft plays out, Des Hasler strikes by selecting a young half early in draft as well as a dynamic outside back to give the Bulldogs a new dimension to their attack in 2017.

This is what the draft is about – it’s giving the teams and their fans hope that next season their team can be better and – who knows? – maybe even go all way.

If the NRL did pull the trigger on a draft, how could it work?

Moving control of the youth talent pool from the clubs to the NRL would be quite a process, but it’s doable. The NRL would remove all NRL junior teams and replace them with region-based teams and leagues across three key age groups of 16s, 18s and 20s in New South Wales, Queensland and New Zealand.

The NRL would then appoint the coaches for each team as well as the talent scouts to manage each player’s profile for the next draft. The NRL would fund all elements of junior rugby league, so for the NRL clubs the only element of the junior system they need to manage would be to monitor the talent pool in preparation for the draft.

Rules of the draft

• Teams that didn’t make the top eight get two first-round draft picks. The teams that made the top eight get one pick per round from the second round onwards.
• There would be six rounds in the draft with 16 picks each. The draft selection order would go from last place in the NRL the year prior to first, except in the first round when only the bottom eight teams participate.
• There would be set annual wages for the players in the draft based on their draft selection – the higher the pick, the higher wage. The contracts would range from $250,000 per annum for the number-one pick down to $70,000 per annum for the 96 pick. All contracts are for two years. The two-year minimum deal gives security to the youth talent, particularly for the players who need to move state or country.
• Under this model there would be approximately 900 of the best youth talent available to pick from, meaning the top 11 per cent would be drafted to NRL clubs – essentially the cream of the crop.
• The draft event itself would be a three-day bonanza. Round one would be a night-time affair broadcast on prime time TV, with players introduced to fans as they are picked. Day two would also be televised at night and would incorporate rounds two and three. Finally, rounds four to six would be held during the day and a highlights show would run in the evening to cover the 6 picks as well as wrap up each team’s draft haul with an assessment of its value.

With the energy this topic has created, I thought it would be fun to see what the draft would have looked like in terms of talent if it were held at the end of the 2016 season.

I went ahead and completed a mock draft, and there was some amazing talent of offer in the first round, including Kalyn Ponga, Nick Cotric, Gideon Gela-Mosby, and Mohammed Suli, to name a few. As I started to predict which players were taken by which teams, some of the talent acquired was extremely impressive.

The Eels for example, would have picked up Gideon Gela Mosby, a superstar in the making, with their first pick and Luciano Leilua, a dynamic edge forward, with their second. Even in round two, when the top eight teams start picking, there was plenty of top-shelf talent still available, like Dylan Edwards and Tyron May from the Panthers – both of whome were in the NYC team of the year and the latter of whom was one of the brightest half prospects in the NYC in 2016.

Thinking outside the box with an NRL draft created some food for thought. My hope is that the NRL will one day agree with my thinking and introduce this amazing experience to our offseason.