The reality of the AFL = "Barely a third of players drafted into the AFL make it to 50 games at any one club."
AFL's folly, too many too youngGreg Baum
The Age
April 14, 2012One of the harsh realities of the game is the astonishing turnover rate of young draftees.
Last weekend, ''Australia'' - to wit, the AFL-AIS under-18 team - played the European Legion in London.
''Australia'' - be still my beating heart - serves several purposes. One is to further the AFL's mission for world domination. Another is to lavish youthful superstars and their families seductively so that other beastly sports - cricket for instance - don't get their claws in. One Alex Keath is an accident; two would be carelessness.
So it was that ''Australia'' had a week of training in that hotbed of AFL, Milan. before moving on to those other hotbeds, London and this week Paris. It was called an ''education and training'' tour. Noted Australia's own Samuel Pepys: ''The opportunity to travel in Italy was exciting, but the opportunity to pull out the Sherrin in another country was something far greater.'' Amen, say generations of backpackers.
Football fawns over its privileged prepubescents. It ropes them in, trains them up, feeds them up, pumps them up, pays them and plugs them in. This has two effects. One is to create a fearful turnover.
Probably the most flipped-over page in the AFL's season guide is the catalogue of players who were listed by clubs last year, but not this. In 2011, there were 116. This year, despite the introduction of a new club and a bigger pool, there were 126 more departees. It is wastage on a nuclear scale.
Some were retiring stars who had run their course. One, Brendan Fevola, was in his own category. But 40 of the demob class of 2012 did not play even one game. Many others played less than a handful. Not all of them were rookies. But a quarter of them were in their teens or just out of them; they had barely begun, and now are finished.
In last year's guide, they were invested with high hopes. About one, it said: ''Will push for senior selection.'' About another: ''Outstanding endurance and agility, excellent shot at goal.'' And another: ''A player who will develop as he gains more bulk.'' And another: ''A project player who will be given plenty of time.''
But all are gone, unwanted by their club or any other. This is the harsh reality. This will be the lot of at least a couple of the 30 now proudly playing for ''Australia'' in Europe. Barely a third of players drafted into the AFL make it to 50 games at any one club. No one in the system complains because no one would forgo even a half-chance, and no one thinks that they will be among the quickly discarded.
The other pronounced effect is to skew the competition to youth. As the playing stock is sucked in, chewed up and spat out, it has to be replenished. Almost the only way to play AFL is to be drafted. Historically, that draft's accent is heavily on beardless youth. Mostly, this youthfulness is absorbed into senior competition, refreshing clubs without weakening them.
Right now, youthfulness is concentrated in two new clubs. GWS in particular looks like an under-age team, with a few dads playing to help out. Both GWS and Gold Coast appear hopelessly uncompetitive, and the AFL looks like a competition that has expanded too far, too quickly, spreading the talent unevenly and diluting it overall.
Of necessity, a new type of recruit is emerging: older, hardier, not necessarily flash, but capable, broken-in, able to find his way around a senior football ground. Geelong's James Podsiadly and Fremantle's Michael Barlow made instant impacts. James Magner came from Sandringham to become almost Melbourne's best player overnight. Geelong, ever the innovator, recruited high school students - and a high school dad. Call it football's third way. But it makes you wonder if we have all been kidded all this time.
As our ''internationals'' are about to learn, it is one thing to get a kick for ''Australia", quite another to get one for, say, North Ballarat.
Full article here: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afls-folly-too-many-too-young-20120413-1wyr5.html#ixzz1scXtcgot
