TAC Cup to help blood new team
http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/tac-cup-to-help-blood-new-team/2008/06/04/1212258909342.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1Michael Gleeson | June 5, 2008
A NEW Gold Coast team will play in the under-18 TAC Cup next year, with the best Queensland teenagers offered contracts to step out of this year's national draft in favour of playing for the new team until it joins the expanded AFL in 2011.
The AFL will today announce the decision after last night informing the parents of Queensland's best under-18 players of the option to potentially play AFL football, yet be certain of remaining in their home state.
The team, which is yet to have a name or jumper, will play for two seasons in the TAC Cup, potentially coached by Michael Voss, which could serve as the triple premiership-winning captain's coaching apprenticeship. The choice of a home ground is also yet to be determined, but the side will play its home games on the Gold Coast next year, with the AFL underwriting the cost of all TAC Cup teams travelling to Queensland to play.
There are two Queenslanders in the Australian Institute of Sport squad — Jesse Haberfield and Declan Bevan — who would be most obviously considered of draftable quality.
The certainty of being drafted and being able to stay in their home state would be also of appeal. Equally, Haberfield, who is available in this year's draft, could decide to take his chance in the draft for the possibility that he could be playing AFL as soon as next year.
The Gold Coast club will not participate in this year's national draft, but Queensland players could choose to pre-sign to it — as occurs with NSW scholarship players — and opt out of the draft.
Now that the decision has been made by the working party of the AFL and GC17 members that a team will play in the TAC Cup next year, staffing appointments will be made, including the coach and recruiting manager.
Initially the decision on who to offer contracts to for the TAC Cup team and bypass the draft will be made by AFL Queensland's game development team, headed by Mark Browning. Prospective players would be signed to the AFL but that contract would fold over to the new club when a consortium wins the licence to play in the AFL.
It is yet to be determined by the AFL commission if the players would be offered standard player contracts despite playing at a level below AFL or VFL. The desire to ensure the offers are attractive would likely mean this is the case.
The league will work with the chief executive of Football Victoria, Peter Schwab, to manage the TAC competition, given a large number of mature-aged players would be playing in an essentially under-age competition.
Presently, some 19-year-olds are permitted to play in the under-18 competition.
"We think developing generations of Queensland talent will be best done by having them play in the TAC Cup, which traditionally produces more than 50% of players drafted," AFL game development manager David Matthews said.
"This fits our philosophy to not only fast-track talent, but to deepen the overall talent pool so that we not only find players for the new Gold Coast team, but for every team in the AFL."
To that end, the AFL also announced the creation of a form of football academy in Queensland, whereeducational help would be provided for promising athletes, which would allow them to be given increased and regular intensive football instruction.
The academy system is an enhancement of the Voss scholarship program and will see students placed at a range of schools in Queensland.
"We have had some significant gains in recent years with the program and we believe now it warrants further investment and the development of an elite intensive football academy," Matthews said.
Collingwood made a detailed submission to the AFL last Friday on the new teams and suggested forming a more elaborate football academy there. Under that model, players aged 15 and 14 would be accepted at a elite private boarding school and be available as a large group to be coached in football on a daily basis.
The Magpies plan, loosely costed at up to $1.6 million, involved aggressively chasing talented athletes from other sports and offering them the scholarships.
The Gold Coast team would have had exclusive access to the best players for the first three years before being given priority access under a bidding system similar to the father-son system.
