GC17, West Sydney - Need to go for top kids in next 2 drafts or we won't get any

[Stripes]

The biggest consession here IMHO is not the 17 year olds but more the rookie draft. The GC will have the first 5 choices in this years rookie draft which has proved a gold mine for un in recent years. What this means for us though is that we need to get players later in the ND which in turn means getting rid of more players from our list. We can have 8 players on our rookie list this year but if the first pick comes at 6 even if we come last this draft has been undermined in a more damaging way than rising the draft age for the National Draft IMO.

This whole new club and its effect on us will create a very tactical environment over the next few years for all clubs.

Stripes

[Smokey]

The biggest consession here IMHO is not the 17 year olds but more the rookie draft. The GC will have the first 5 choices in this years rookie draft which has proved a gold mine for un in recent years. What this means for us though is that we need to get players later in the ND which in turn means getting rid of more players from our list. We can have 8 players on our rookie list this year but if the first pick comes at 6 even if we come last this draft has been undermined in a more damaging way than rising the draft age for the National Draft IMO.

This whole new club and its effect on us will create a very tactical environment over the next few years for all clubs.

Stripes

Might find this year will be a very different trade week - might be very active as opposed to the previous few 'bore-a-thons'.

[Stripes]

The more a hear about the consessions the GC will get over the next two drafts follwed by the consessions the West Sydney team will get in subsequent draft proceeding those years the more I urge the club to TANK. This is our last chance to build up a team that we will be practically locked in for years to come.

Stripes

[Infamy]

The free ride the GC17 franchise is getting is sickening
They could easily end up a far bigger juggernaut than Brisbane ever were
Clearly they may struggle to keep all their stars under the salary cap eventually, but we know they're getting benefits there too

They're effectively mortgaging the entire competition for a single team, not to mention the West Sydney team will get something similar shortly after

[one-eyed]

Gold Coast is clear for draft gold
Damian Barrett | July 11, 2009

AFL commissioners are too professional to publicly gloat. But, rest assured, there has been a lot of in-house high-fiving and heel clicking in the months since they officially granted list-management concessions for the Gold Coast team.

Exactly how the commission managed to convince the 16 existing clubs to provide such a gift to the new team, which will join the national competition in 2011, remains baffling.

Especially when the clubs did so knowing they would also have to give the Western Sydney outfit, which will join the AFL in 2012, similar player-drafting favours.

For those who have forgotten or not yet absorbed the concessions given to Gold Coast, prepare to be shocked in coming months - and again late next year - when the talent pool will be raided.

At this year's national draft, Gold Coast recruiter Scott Clayton has been empowered to select the 12 17-year-olds he deems to be the best in the country.

In the 2010 draft, Clayton, if he can bring himself to stop salivating, will load right up with players chosen at picks 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15.

Those teenagers will join big-name players from other clubs snared by the Gold Coast under another AFL Commission-enforced concession.

Gold Coast has rights to 16 - a maximum of one from each club - uncontracted players next year.

But wait, there is more. The new club will be given the first five picks in this year's rookie draft.

And that is on top of already having had unfettered access to up to 15 Queensland-based teenagers for three years from 2010.

For its first four seasons, Gold Coast will be allowed to operate with an expanded list as well as pay its players more than all other clubs, including $1 million extra in 2011.

It is astonishing what Gold Coast has been granted.

Sure, it was important the new franchise be given significant support from the outset, but the raft of allowances will destroy an already compromised drafting system and, by extension, place even further pressure on struggling existing clubs.

Seven senior football club officials were appointed by the AFL to act on a sub-committee in discussions relating to concessions given to the Gold Coast.

Ian Robson, Cameron Schwab and Steven Trigg (chief executives of Hawthorn, Melbourne and Adelaide), Andrew Ireland and Graeme Allan (football department heads at Sydney and Brisbane) and Stephen Wells and Derek Hine (chief recruiters at Geelong and Collingwood) joined AFL officials on the committee.

The same men will also be the representative club group for the same discussions that will be had about Western Sydney.

Unless the existing 16 clubs show some clout, which they refused to display when it came to the Gold Coast deliberations, Western Sydney will also benefit from a lucrative set of drafting favours.

The AFL does not want its new teams languishing for years down the bottom of the ladder.

While that is sound ideology, it is just as easy to mount an argument that having those teams artificially pitch-forked in to the finals would be just as damaging for the competition.

Try convincing a supporter of the Western Bulldogs, whose only flag came 55 years ago, that it will be good for football to have the Gold Coast present itself as a premiership force within years of being born.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25762053-19742,00.html

[one-eyed]

I've posted the full West Sydney concessions on the draft board but basically they get everything GC17 did plus a few extra cherries on top.

2010:
Twelve 17-year olds (born Jan-Apr 1993)
First 8 picks in the rookie draft

2011:
National draft picks 1,2,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,27,45,63,81

2011-12:
Four 17 year olds (born Jan-Apr 1994) who can be traded to existing clubs in exchange for ready-made experienced players over a two year period.

Pre-list 10 players who had previously nominated for the AFL Draft, or were previously listed with an AFL club. If the club does not sign 10 players after the 2011 season, it can sign the balance of up to 10 players at the end of the 2012 season.

Capacity to sign up to 16 uncontracted players (one per existing club). If 16 not signed in 2011 the balance can be signed in 2012

Full concessions listed here:
http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/86208/default.aspx
http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/86214/default.aspx


In terms of a existing club rebuilding like us:

the wooden spooner ends up with picks 4, 28, 46, 64, 82

Concession picks for losing an uncontracted player are usable and tradable for 5 years (until 2015). You can't use it until 2012 and you have to nominate when you are using it prior to the start of the season.

AFL clubs can now select a second mature-aged rookie in this year's NAB AFL Rookie Draft, to be held in December. Previously, it could select just one. This rule will be in place until the end of 2012.

Other aspects of the new rookie rules include:
* Any payment above the minimum payment for rookies to be included in the Total Player Payments (TPP).
* This amendment to apply until the end of the 2012 season when the number of mature age rookies would reduce to the current level of one per club
* That clubs have the right to retain rookie list players for three seasons without having to enter the draft, subject to the player being given the option of entering the NAB AFL Draft.

As announced in August, two other rules were brought in immediately. Clubs were able to trade rookies in the recent exchange period and in the upcoming NAB AFL Draft,

And in the upcoming NAB AFL Draft, elevated rookies will be counted as a compulsory selection.

Clubs which have already signed NSW scholarship players will also be given the option of trading them to GWS or Sydney Swans.

[one-eyed]

It takes 7 years on average to go from bottom feeder to premiership contender according to the Australian...

Rivals rush to rebuild as draft fallback disappears
Stephen Rielly | October 21, 2009

Not as difficult, though, as it will be for those clubs who, with dreadful timing, are poised to embark on a reconstruction effort. Richmond and North Melbourne come to mind.

A rebuild that is not already well underway is going to take significantly longer than it otherwise would.

By the league's own measure, the average length of a transformation from bottom feeder to premiership contender is about seven years. That is, with access to the best players, young and uncontracted, it takes seven years to turn a caterpillar into a butterfly.

In 2010, when Gold Coast has nine of the first 15 picks in the national draft, including the first three, the team that finishes on the bottom will have selections four and 28 with which to begin the process of renewal.

A top-five selection more often than not produces a fine player these days but clubs throw picks in the late 20s around like Lotto tickets which some would argue have about as much chance of giving something back.

It will be no different in 2011, when western Sydney has the same concessions.

"Get in now because, for a couple of years or more, there will be little to get in for," was the summation of Melbourne's list manager, Tim Harrington.

"If you're trying to gather talent, you're not going to gather it very quickly if your second pick is 28."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26238192-5013406,00.html

[mightytiges]

The media have written us off completely from ever rebuilding thanks to these new teams hogging the 2010-2012 drafts;  whereas the Club seem to think we'll be fine given our chuck of 23 and unders. I know one official at Richmond this year tell us at training we have the best crop of youngsters in the AFL  and we'll see the proof of that in the near future.

It's going to be a real test for the Club to be smart and bold with drafting and trading which is something we don't have a history of over the 23 years of the draft system  .

The hard part is going to be extracting more early (top 20) picks without the help of priority picks. Being most likely a bottom side, will the new teams try to raid our best youngsters with the offer of big $$$ or will they ignore us completely believing our list is rubbish (similar to what happened with Tucky this year)?
On top of that will existing top 8 clubs copy Brisbane this year and trade their picks away for readymade existing players? Apparently Voss walked out of the GF this year saying the Lions had no chance of competing with those two sides and he wasn't prepared to wait until after Brown, Black and Power retired to rebuild.

It'll be a brave new world but when there's major upheaval there's also opportunity to jump the rest of the pack for a club that is smart and innovative and can exploit new rules to its advantage. Everyone remembers North as perennial losers exploiting the temporary 10 year rule and coming out the other side with two flags.

[Hellenic Tiger]

It all boils down to drafting sensibly when you are rebuilding from scratch.
Picking kids that will fill needs and requirements and trading list cloggers away for picks or delisting them. That way you change the look of the side and the list and you change the core of that list.

Then as the team finds it's feet you continue to draft whilst trading away your list cloggers for picks or delisting them.

Then when your premiership window you us some picks on kids and trade some picks or players for players who will have a defined role at the club ala Stuart Dew, Josh Mahoney, Martin Pike, Nick Davis where once your premiership window closes these players won't be at the club and thus clogging the list and inhibiting the rebuild process when it starts again. The characteristic here people is shrewd. Do we have a shrewd operator at Punt Rd now?

[mightytiges]

Agree Tucky. With the new teams coming in and most existing clubs having just one pick inside the top 30 it'll those clubs that are most shrewd, knowledgeable, innovative and spot on with their mid-range picks that will do best.

As for the question - do we have a shrewd operator? The whole club from top to bottom needs to be shrewd. The days of one person doing it all such as a GR have long gone. Do we have the best people and the required resources at the club relating to recruiting?

[wayne]

Tank for pick 4 

[Ramps]

Tank for pick 4 

If we had tanked this year and had 3 picks inside 20 then it wouldnt be so bad. The reality is however is that we are stranded down the bottom with just 2 picks inside 20 and one of those is only 19. The reality is that we cannot make a mistake with either 3 or 19. We need 2 x 200 game players with these picks. Pick 3 should be a monty so 19 is the hard choice. Do we go for a keyFWD like Black or Griffiths or reach for Houghton or do we go for another midfielder like Bastinac or maybe say a Sheppard who may slip through. The extra pick could have gotten us the forward and the extra mid but thems the breaks.

[mightytiges]

Tank for pick 4 

Given how young our list will be next year that may not be too difficult to achieve and not necessarily a bad thing mid-to-long-term.

If we had tanked this year and had 3 picks inside 20 then it wouldnt be so bad. The reality is however is that we are stranded down the bottom with just 2 picks inside 20 and one of those is only 19. The reality is that we cannot make a mistake with either 3 or 19. We need 2 x 200 game players with these picks. Pick 3 should be a monty so 19 is the hard choice. Do we go for a keyFWD like Black or Griffiths or reach for Houghton or do we go for another midfielder like Bastinac or maybe say a Sheppard who may slip through. The extra pick could have gotten us the forward and the extra mid but thems the breaks.

Yep too late now and we didn't see a "winning culture" come out of those few wins either.

I can still see us going for best available at 19.  There's only 10 clubs with selections between our first two picks. Those with multiple picks (Melb, Port, Syd) will mostly likely pick up a spread of mids and KPPs. Whether we go for a key forward or another mid at 19 will depend on the needs of the clubs with just the single pick. Freo will most likely take Morabito and North Cunnington. The other 5 clubs are still unknowns.

[Hellenic Tiger]

I'd be pretty certain Sydney would take Butcher at 6.

[Ramps]

Up till now Ive said we need a key forward but at 19 clubs have rarely been able to pick up decent key forwards, maybe Griffiths, Black, and Houghton are different although Griffiths at 19 and Houghton at 35 should still be there, the reality is though if a Brad Sheppard is there at 19 he is a must choose. We have so many holes to fill, so many players still to find who can kick the footy. If we ended up with 2 midfielders at 3 and 19 who can play 200 games and can kick the footy properly, I dont any of us would be upset. If we couldnt get say a Houghton at 35 then Id probably look at Zac Ledin again another midfielder but another who can kick the footy properly.

If we look back at the last few years most games we play we have between 8 and 14 goals conceded by us from turnovers. If we could include say a Martin a Sheppard a Ledin and a Farmer, and take out 3 or 4 of the many turnover merchants we have then maybe instead of conceding say 10 or 12 goals from turnovers, maybe we'd only concede 6 or 7. Still not great but it would be an improvement and it would be a sign that we are headed in the right direction.  Wed probably win more games to.