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This week the worst kept secret in drafting circles was revealed: Nick Blakey will forego father-son connections, and nominate the Sydney Swans as his club of choice at the 2018 AFL National Draft.
It is a decision that has frustrated and disappointed fans, officials, and coaches of both North Melbourne and Brisbane – where his father, John, played 135 games, and 224 games and won two premierships, respectively.
Nick – a 190-plus centimetre forward certain to be selected in the top ten of this year’s draft – is not to blame, but a simple decision made by a teenager has stoked the fire underneath a widely known, yet under-discussed flaw in the protocols of the game.
The buzzword of the modern era has been ‘equalisation’. It is a core concept that, no matter the history, wealth, or other off-field resources available to any given club, they all are provided with an opportunity for on-field success.
And yet, an institution that is integral in achieving the AFL’s equalisation agenda, the National Draft, is undermined by the academy system – be it those north of the Barassi Line or the Next-Generation Academies available to all clubs across the country.
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The academies are well-intentioned. The northern academies are designed to tempt New South Wales and Queensland’s most promising junior athletes away from the clutches of soccer, rugby league and rugby union, while the NGAs provide crucial development pathways for multicultural and indigenous kids to pursue their AFL dreams.
But, you know what they say: the road to a compromised draft is paved with good intentions.
To allow a club unfettered access to the most talented kids simply by virtue of their geographical location is not just giving those clubs a leg up, it’s just downright unfair. It makes a complete mockery of that ‘equalisation’ concept.
In the hands of clubs, they’re retrograde tools that hearken back to a day when a club’s money and pulling power determined where the most talented teenagers would play.
They also offer a real threat to the integrity of the game; a temptation for clubs to offer scholarships, payments and jobs for family members to lure kids into their academy’s jurisdiction.
That’s not to say that the academies should be scrapped, because they shouldn’t. They work. There are AFL footballers right now that most likely wouldn’t be where they are today if it wasn’t for the academies, Isaac Heeney at Sydney the obvious example.
Isaac Heeney (Photo: Michael Willson/AFL Media)
But they need to be taken out of the hands of the clubs. The pathways, the systems, the incentives should all stay as they are, but the end result should be a prospect that is able to be drafted by any club.
Now, some might suggest that this will lead to the collapse of the academies as clubs pull their funding and involvement without the significant incentive of claiming the choice prospects. Perhaps they will, but this should be a cause of celebration, not angst.
The responsibility for funding the academies should fall exclusively on the AFL; not an organisation short on funds. This would be a worthwhile investment in the development of the game across the country that would serve to make the academies truly impartial.
This might push some junior footballers away from the academies, as the prospect of staying in their home city disappears and they face the possibility of moving around the country. This is a challenge that every aspiring AFL footballer faces, and academy members shouldn’t be exempt just because of where they live.
Satisfying junior footballers and their families is not worth the cost to the integrity of the game. Those that may be lost are a necessary sacrifice in the quest for true equalisation.
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