Has the AFL brought the standard down by adding new Clubs

[bornadog]

On the back of the thread on massive losses I have been thinking about this for awhile. Each club has around 45 players on their list. Suddenly by bringing in GC, that's another 45 AFL standard players that need to be found. On top of this we also have GWS, so that's another 45 players.

Has the AFL erred by having the extra clubs, or are there now more opportunities out there for younger players who would have missed out in the past?

Personally, I think there currently aren't enough players out there at AFL standard, and this has lead to massive losses as well as a drop in the standard of play for many clubs. I think this will eventually be rectified in about 5 years time when young players become more experienced and are trained at a higher standard than if they weren't playing AFL.

[AndrewP6]

I think bringing 2 new teams in so closely to each other was a massive blue, diluting the talent pool, and making it tougher for teams already struggling.

[Topdog]

Yep, it is impossible for the standard to go any other way than down in the short term.

[Throughandthrough]

Sigh. It's all about the money. The massive boost in media rights is directly related to having more matches to telecast. The AFL has allready got back any money they spent on the expansion clubs in spades.

[Sockeye Salmon]

How it should have worked.


Move the draft age cutoff back to April 30 for the 2010 draft - that gives us 16 months worth of kids to recruit from the pool.

For the 2011 draft it goes back to December - an 8 month window but delay the entry of GWS until 2013. Stretch it back out the April for the 2012 draft so we are back to a 16 month window for the GWS entry.

No 17yos - all that does weaken next years draft further.


All state league players and delistings can be signed as free agents by the new entity but cannot be traded.


Give the new entity pick 1 and every alternate pick for the first round. This would give them picks 1, 3, 5, 7 ...etc up until pick 35. The second round is standard and the 3rd round is as the first round. GWS get 53, 55, 57 etc (but probably wouldn't use them).


Access to up to one uncontracted player per club (for one year only, what's this 2 year bullshit?) but compensation is paid out of their existing draft picks and determined by the players age and salary.

Players annual salary x (20/players age) = trade value

eg.
Callan Ward = $750K x (20/21) = 714 = pick 5
Jarrod Harbrow = $400K x (20/22) = 364 = pick 15
Campbell Brown = $400K x (20/27) = 296 = pick 31
Josh Fraser = $200K (20/30) = 133 = pick 73


This compensation model forces the new entity to think a bit more about how much they will offer an uncontracted player.

They could offer Tom Scully $1m/year but he will cost them pick 1. If they offer him $600K/year he would cost them pick 7, at what point do they think they will get him?


No extra salary cap.



Sockeye Salmon >>>>>> Andrew Demetriou.

[mjp]

Sockeye Salmon >>>>>> Andrew Demetriou.

Good system SS...but if you want the new clubs to receive a boost and have immediate success - which the AFL does - then why would they want to increase compensation?

[Sockeye Salmon]

Good system SS...but if you want the new clubs to receive a boost and have immediate success - which the AFL does - then why would they want to increase compensation?

We have different agendas.

I want a fair system, they don't.

[LostDoggy]

What increases the gap further is that top 4 clubs don't loose players to these new clubs. So the weak get diluted and the strong stay the same. Being the lower clubs don't have access to the best parts of the draft, the gap wont close anytime soon.

[mjp]

Top 4 clubs? Which ones?

Geelong lost the best player of all and seem to have survived just fine thanks. If you set aside all of the rumours about 'outside the cap' payments - we all know about the Judd/Visy thing but we don't really know about any others - do you think that maybe other clubs just do a better job of making their playing group 'happy' than we do?

If players such as Goldsack cannot be extracted from Collingwood this off-season (by a side like ours or North or Melbourne etc) then something is wrong somewhere. There is simply no way that Collingwood (assume they play in the GF) having played in two successive GF's winning at least one should be able to offer one of their fringe'ish players more than we can. If they can - and why would they bother with outside the cap payments to 'non-core' players - then there is clearly something odd going on - either a trick with contract structure/salary cap rules that we haven't cottoned onto or outright cheating. And if they can't and he still wont come across? Well, then we need to face reality and start over-paying our own players early and often.

I have said elsewhere - there are other players coming out of contract at the end of this year who we wanted on draft day 2-years ago (Lewis Jetta springs to mind) and we should be trying hard to get them to the club. Our draftees from the same time have not exactly out-performed their contracts - apart from Dalhaus and Griffen (based on performance) what big pay rises need to be budgeted for at years end? - so money MUST be available to recruit...

So let's recruit hard.

[Ghost Dog]

Yep, it is impossible for the standard to go any other way than down in the short term.

Good point

[Ghost Dog]

Nobody wants to see the blowouts. It's boring. but with Melb FC and Port, not really sure it's directly linked to GWS and GC

[LostDoggy]

Nobody wants to see the blowouts. It's boring. but with Melb FC and Port, not really sure it's directly linked to GWS and GC

Problems in the administration, club culture and leadership is the cause of those two particular woes.