The AFL looks set to decide in the next few weeks whether to grant priority picks to Carlton and the Suns.
The Blues met with top brass last week to discuss the club’s future and ask for a priority selection, while Gold Coast are expected to do the same shortly.
Awarding such a pick is at the AFL’s discretion, as well as where in the draft such a pick would fall. Historically, this has either been at the end of the first round – so after each club has had a selection – or in the middle of the first round, after each club that finished in the bottom half has had a crack.
Theoretically, the pick could be awarded at the beginning of the first round, but this would be vehemently opposed by the other non-recipient clubs as being too generous (which is the main issue with free agency compensation, but that’s another issue altogether).
When deciding whether to award a priority pick, factors considered include the club’s overall list position, its off-field financial and management position, on-field form over the past few seasons, and what other avenues of support might be available to improve the list.
Based solely on their on-field results over the past few seasons, dispensation to both clubs seems warranted.
The Blues finished 2018 with only two wins, their fewest since 1902. The club experienced several 100-plus point losses, and were regularly uncompetitive.
Gold Coast had a similarly abject season, finishing second last, which was compounded by the news that co-captain and foundation player Tom Lynch wishes to seek a trade to a Melbourne club.
Tom Lynch of the Suns. (Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)
Both clubs have also experienced several years of poor form – Carlton have not won more than seven games over the past five seasons, while the Suns’ win numbers have decreased each season during that period.
The parlous state of both clubs’ lists have been well-documented. Both lack players in the coveted 23-26 age bracket, both have struggled with player development, and both have used the strategy of trying to supplement their young talent with top-up players from other clubs, which has not been a raging success.
In particular, the Blues’ strategy of picking up former Greater Western Sydney players who weren’t able to break into that side has not paid dividends – of the ten players taken under this strategy, only Lachie Plowman, Caleb Marchbank and Matthew Kennedy have looked like becoming decent players.
Gold Coast has had slightly more success in this venture – Michael Rischitelli, Matt Rosa, Michael Barlow, Jarryd Lyons, and Lachie Weller have been useful – but haven’t attracted a star player.
This has been compounded by the loss of seven of their best, most experienced players – Jaeger O’Meara, Dion Prestia, Adam Saad, Harley Bennell, Brandon Matera, Zac Smith, and Charlie Dixon – over the past few years.
O’Meara, Prestia, Saad and Dixon have become first-choice players at their current clubs, while Matera and Smith have also been handy inclusions at times.
Jaeger O’Meara of the Hawks (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Their departures were due to both the well-document cultural issues plaguing the club, as well as the difficulty of being a northern club in a non-traditional football environment.
For both clubs, these are long-standing issues which won’t be fixed overnight.
Carlton CEO Cain Liddle said recently that the club’s aim when embarking on their rebuild had been to try and stock up at three drafts. They’ve done that, but clearly more work is needed. Given the egregious state of the list when Steven Silvagni took over, it will likely take several more years to become competitive.
Little also noted the need for more balance, with the club looking to target more players in the 23-26 age bracket. Similarly, Gold Coast chairman Tony Cochrane said the club’s concern in previous years was losing its best players for high draft picks only – aware of the need for a balanced list – and that the young players selected with those picks would likely take many years to develop.
Given this, priority picks are not a useful mechanism for either club to mitigate their on-field dilemmas in the short-term.
While there needs to be equalisation measures in place to avoid self-perpetuating, long-term cycles of entrenched inequality, there also needs to be recognition of recruiting as a science.
The clubs that have performed best over the past ten years have, for the most part, done so without access to many high draft picks.
Sydney recruiter Kinnear Beatson, Hawthorn’s Graeme Wright, and Geelong’s Stephen Wells have made their reputations on an ability to find good players with later picks. They have also traded astutely, with a specific plan.
It’s unfair to the clubs who have mastered this science to reward those who finish lower down the ladder with high draft picks – historically more likely to turn into good players.
Another aspect of this is the development factor – these successful clubs have also developed recruits, wherever they are selected. Too often, this is an area where struggling clubs find themselves falling behind. Even allowing for the fact that higher draft picks are more likely to turn into good players than lower picks, clubs still need to develop them. This, of course, often relies on resources, both financial and personnel, so is not an issue that will be solved through awarding priority selections.
So, could other mechanisms be looked at to assist Gold Coast and Carlton?
I was pleased to hear that the AFL is considering allowing struggling clubs first access to mature-aged players in state leagues. This would go some way to addressing the dearth of players in the 23-26 bracket. Of course, there’s no guarantee that they will become first-choice selections, but one would hope that their experience helps develop the youngsters.
However, if the AFL does ultimately decide to grant the Suns and Blues a priority pick, this should come with some strings attached. It should be awarded at the end of the first round, and the clubs should be made to trade it, in a similar way to GWS’ ‘mini draft’ selections in their first two years in the competition.
If no players appealed to either club this year, they could save the pick for next year. Either way, this may mean paying ‘overs’ to prise a player out of a team, but in reality, any club trying to attract a decent player needs to pay more than market value.
There are obviously pros and cons to both these proposals, and I don’t pretend that either will be panaceas for all the clubs’ issues, but they are a start.
The AFL has a difficult task in balancing too much and inadequate equalisation measures, but priority picks shouldn’t be seen as the ultimate measure of assistance.
One Eyed
Roar Rookie
Firstly .... every successful and sustainable rebuild in the post AFL era has taken either 7 to 8 seasons from start to premiership. Carlton has finished year 3. Secondly, Free Agency has complicated things. While free agents have moved to all levels, the high quality ones have tended to move from a lower club to a higher one. Thirdly, successful rebuilds have all had several drafts where there was a cohort of three stars draft in the same draft (2015 might be one for Carlton) There is no doubt we need faster churn of teams and a more even competition. If there are 9 quality games a week, the pie will get bigger. The best thing for the AFL to do is systematically slant the draft towards lower teams and adopt Option 2 of having the first 20 picks for the teams that missed the finals (in fact I would extend that to the first 30 picks) - this doesn't guarantee that clubs will pick the best ones... but increases the chance. It also provides trade bait for experience players. Teams that drop out of the finals race in one year can bounce back .... and tanking would mean not playing finals.
reuster75
Roar Rookie
"fact is geelong has benefitted from them far more than others". All the father sons picks did for us was to balance out not having any picks inside the top five which is where you traditionally find your key position players. Our father son selections in the last 20 years have been - Marc Woolnough was recruited same time as Scarlett (in 1997) but had continual problems with his knees so didn't play many games. Matthew Scarlett who undoubtedly was a brilliant player. David Clarke (1998) who only player 89 games. Gary Ablett, whom we lost to Gold Coast for 7 years, and yes is an absolute gun but at the time he was drafted there were question marks around him so no guarantee he'd have been a high pick in the draft. Tim Callan (34 games). Mark Blake (2003) who was a competent ruckman but hardly a out and out champion). Nathan Ablett (2004), who left at the end of the 2007 season and left it so late we had no chance to replace him on the list. Tom Hawkins (2006) who has been very good for us over the 8 years but the final quarter of 2011 GF apart, didn't play a major role in our dominant flag winning era. Adam Donahue (2007) who played zero games. Jed Bews (2011) who is slowly developing into a handy player but is not a player who'd ever go high in the draft. Sam Simpson (2016) who has only played 5 games so far. So out of all those players we got three undisputed champion players (G Ablett, Scarlett and Hawkins)
Jim
Roar Rookie
Yes all 3 clubs have benefitted from club concessions, no doubt. The Swans though could argue they also got punished by a farcical trade ban in recent years, and at least they can claim some reasonable justification around Heeney and Mills that they should be provided some concession, on the basis of the substantive resources the club directly puts into the academy system to develop those players in the first place (a whole can of different worms of course to argue about!).
Jim
Roar Rookie
Free agency has truly opened a can of worms in the AFL, whether people want to accept it or not. The destination club syndrome is wiping out a large chunk of the equalisation that a range of other measures are designed to achieve.
Fat Toad
Roar Rookie
I strongly dislike this new posting system, my proof reading is rubbish if I can not see more lines. Sorry to all about all the typos etc.
Fat Toad
Roar Rookie
To only consider the picks at the draft misses the point that Carlton should have had plenty of access to picks from the ladder positions over the last 15 years. Players still have to be developed. But even when Carlton have brought in developed higher ranked players from the Giants, they have failed to make good with their choices. No amount of fiddling with the draft or free agency will over come poor management.
Fat Toad
Roar Rookie
Hi Sammy, I should have read further down the string first, I have made a similar suggestions. (Is is great minds think alike or that fools seldom differ?) I think that the club should find their own money but also that the AFL can not be involved because ultimately they are responsible for approving all player transfers and for them to be paying and approving the transfer puts them in a position of a potential conflict of interest. For example, the league would have the potential to not approve a transfer to one club but approve the same player to the club they are supporting with assistance. In effect this would become tampering with the open player market and shifts some of the problems and costs onto players by suppressing their value.
Fat Toad
Roar Rookie
Much of the discussion about how to help teams is focused around the market place for players coming into the AFL either as draftees or as mature players through the state leagues. But further to this my limiting free agent options and movement. I am concerned about expecting that players have their options about which club they go to limited in some way after they have passed through the draft process either as draftees or rejects. Limiting players ability to hawk their talents on the open market pushes the costs of poor list management or corrosive culture onto the players involved. If you are a good play leaving a club because they have a bad culture why would you be happy to go to another club also with a poor culture? When Sydney had additional salary cap space nominally to compensate for the cost of living being higher in Sydney, they were given a higher salary cap. How they actually used the money was to attract a new mature player each year. The effect on their recruiting was profound. I would envisage that such a system would be for a period of perhaps five years, but would have an outcome that would probably extend over ten. This approach has the additional benefits that it does not distort the draft process, avoids the ethical issues around a player's rights, or shifting the cost of poor club management onto players seeking to move. For those that follow economic theory, it also has the benefit of stimulating the demand side of the player market equation rather than attempting to fiddle with the supply side which has the potential to introduce a wide range of unintended and undesirable consequences.
Macca
Roar Rookie
No one is giving up, it is simply making sure you don't end up peaking in the middle.
Cat
Roar Guru
That is where you and I disagree again. I do not believe in '5 year rebuilds'. I don't believe in the idea of giving up for several years. In my opinion it is ripe for cultural rot. Clubs start accepting losing – so do players.
Macca
Roar Rookie
On the footywire site it is listed as a priority, I apologise if that is incorrect but it hardly changes the point that the hawks success was helped by priority picks, not just knowing how to draft better.
JamesH
Roar Guru
I honestly don't think they (or Gold Coast) need any. The media hysteria around their poor season is a bit ridiculous, given where they are at. What they need is a better run with injuries to senior players and natural development from their young players. No amount of priority picks or facilities upgrades will help with that. I'm tipping Weitering to have a strong season down back. He's too good to have another off year.
Macca
Roar Rookie
Peter - it may not be controlled but it is (and was much bigger back when the Cats got them) a massive leg upthat has the same result as a priority pick.
me too
Roar Rookie
draft picks are just as pure luck as father-sons. both are a lottery. fact is geelong has benefitted from them far more than others. good 'luck' to them. but those who want to downplay their own good fortune whilst denying others to right to it are poor citizens.
Macca
Roar Rookie
For the record in 2002 in the blues first pick was 45, in 2003 the got pick 2 as a priority but their next pick was 57, their next priority was pick 1 in 2005 which allowed them to take Murphy and Kennedy, in 2006 they got 17 as a priority (Shaun Hampson), then they got a pick 3 as priority pick in 2007 which was traded with Kennedy for Judd. No exactly better than the Pies who after 2 priority picks in 1999 & 2000 somehow got another pick just two years after appearing in back to back premierships.
Macca
Roar Rookie
Pete - the blues priority picks got them from last to 4 finals in 5 years which given they didn't even replace the picks we lost was pretty good. But the fact they worked for the Pies (and the Hawks and the blues) is exactly the point - they work!!
Macca
Roar Rookie
Even if that is true Pete ( which given the leadership qualities of Docherty, Cripps, Simpson etc it clearly isn't) how does a petulant 34 year old help?
Deab
Guest
Hawks didnt get awarded a priority pick for for Luke Hodge, get your facts right. They traded Croad and a key defender who I have gone blank on his name (great player) with Fremantle for their pick 1, approximately pick 15 from memory and pick 36 in return. Bagging Hodge at pick 1 and Sam Mitchell at pick 36.
Cat
Roar Guru
How much can you front end a 2 or 3 year contract though?
RT
Roar Rookie
No I don't think that is a bad idea. I am not necessarily opposed to priority picks. I don't think Richmond would want much for him and were open to a trade last year but he could only get himself a rookie offer. Some future picks might help Richmond get points for a future father son. Plus he is out of contract so might come very cheaply.