Integrating or Dominating?
May 4th 2008 08:25
The AFL's proposal for integrating the league's new franchise teams is absurd. The idea is give the teams the TOP FIVE picks in their first draft. Are they serious?
What sort of rush is the AFL in? Is Andrew Demetriou in such a hurry to etch his name into AFL history that he has foregone such formalities as, say, foresight? The simple consideration of consequences of his actions?
I provide for you the top five draft picks of recent years, just to illustrate the dominance that any team that had ALL of them, not just one or two, would see just about within the next two years:
2006:
Bryce Gibbs
Scott Gumbleton
Lachlan Hansen
Matthew Leuenberger
Travis Boak
2005:
Marc Murphy
Dale Thomas
Xavier Ellis
Josh Kennedy
Scott Pendlebury
2004:
Brett Deledio
Jarryd Roughead
Ryan Griffen
Richard Tambling
Lance Franklin
2003:
Adam Cooney
Andrew Walker
Colin Sylvia
Farren Ray
Brock McLean
These lists may seem good, but consider that a team with the first five picks would not spend them all on midfielders. They would take the best quicks AND the best key position players. And they get a three more picks until pick 24. This is supposed to assist integration, not domination.
Imagine a side who has Leuenberger winning the ball down to Cooney, who dishes to Pendlebury, who can then kick to Roughead OR Franklin on the lead?
It took teams like Hawthorn and Carlton years and years of poor finishes to build a winning combinations. It’s not as if people will just straight off the Gold Coast for not making the finals in its first year.
Draft concessions are a decent and fair way to ease the new teams into the competition. But please, AFL, consider phasing them in with a bit more care. Maybe two or three per year for a few years, but five in one? That's just madness.
What sort of rush is the AFL in? Is Andrew Demetriou in such a hurry to etch his name into AFL history that he has foregone such formalities as, say, foresight? The simple consideration of consequences of his actions?
I provide for you the top five draft picks of recent years, just to illustrate the dominance that any team that had ALL of them, not just one or two, would see just about within the next two years:
Bryce Gibbs
Scott Gumbleton
Lachlan Hansen
Matthew Leuenberger
Travis Boak
2005:
Marc Murphy
Dale Thomas
Xavier Ellis
Josh Kennedy
Scott Pendlebury
2004:
Brett Deledio
Jarryd Roughead
Ryan Griffen
Richard Tambling
Lance Franklin
2003:
Adam Cooney
Andrew Walker
Colin Sylvia
Farren Ray
Brock McLean
These lists may seem good, but consider that a team with the first five picks would not spend them all on midfielders. They would take the best quicks AND the best key position players. And they get a three more picks until pick 24. This is supposed to assist integration, not domination.
Imagine a side who has Leuenberger winning the ball down to Cooney, who dishes to Pendlebury, who can then kick to Roughead OR Franklin on the lead?
It took teams like Hawthorn and Carlton years and years of poor finishes to build a winning combinations. It’s not as if people will just straight off the Gold Coast for not making the finals in its first year.
Draft concessions are a decent and fair way to ease the new teams into the competition. But please, AFL, consider phasing them in with a bit more care. Maybe two or three per year for a few years, but five in one? That's just madness.
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