The free agency debacle - shame on you AFLPA

[What 18,810]

Good to see Dermott Brereton and Nathan Buckley speaking out against the free agency farce which is ruining the competition

http://www.sen.com.au/news/buckley-brereton-free-agency-not-equal

Apparently Roosy just had some things to say too, cant find an article though

I hope the AFLPA are proud of themselves for destroying the game., all in the name of making their players lives even easier than they already were when they already had everything dished up to them on a silver spoon

[Return to Glory 8,443]

I have just listened to the turkey who is President of the AFLPA. I kid you not, it was,like listening to Sir Humphrey Appleby including,the phrase 'in the fullness of time'.

I haven't heard such double speaking shite in a while.

[M_9 2,082]

I have just listened to the turkey who is President of the AFLPA. I kid you not, it was,like listening to Sir Humphrey Appleby including,the phrase 'in the fullness of time'.

I haven't heard such double speaking shite in a while.

He (Prendergast) added that by moving restricted agency from 8 years to 6 years would somehow facilitate more chance of players moving from higher placed teams to the lower teams as there'd be more players on the market. Absolute shite.

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

I don't think it is the end of the world like everyone is making it out to be, after all Franklin did leave Hawthorn through free agency (albeit to another strong team).

I just don't understand why it is needed if players had always been able to dictate where they want to go.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Clint Bizkit

[The Song Formerly Known As 6,479]

"Free agency is the greatest de-equalisation of equalisation in footy"- Paul Roos

Edited October 2, 2014 by The Song Formerly Known As

[praha 11,240]

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here.

A few questions we need to ask:

1. Does free agency punish the "poor" teams, or the teams that are poorly managed?

2. A "rich" clubs immune from losing stars through free agency?

3. Is Melbourne losing Frawley, Sylvia and Rivers more a product of free agency, or the club's inability to satisfy player needs?

I can't help but wonder had Melbourne not been run by amateurs for most of the 00s and particularly 2008-2013, if we'd been able to retain those players.

1. If we were playing finals in 2011 as was envisioned in 2010, and if we were still playing finals, would Frawley still have left?

2. Is our inability to attract the likes of Dangerfield more telling of the club's past, the club's present, or the club's potential future?

Free agency isn't "killing the game": it's killing clubs that are poorly managed.

Port Adelaide went from a NOTHING club two years ago to suddenly a juggernaut that has the potential to overtake the Crows on and off the field. Free agency hasn't and probably won't hurt them: could we have said the same thing a few years ago?

Free agency was inevitable. Rather than pointing the finger at what should actually be a pretty simple transition for the game, let's consider how and why clubs like Melbourne appear to be suffering more than most.

And we all now why it is: it's not free agency that is pushing players away from Melbourne. It's Melbourne pushing players away from Melbourne.

It's a new era and this is make or break for the club. Continue to be run like a nothing club, and you will get nothing in return.

You need to *earn* respect, not expect it. Frawley leaving is not a surprise and it shouldn't be.

We're blaming free agency when really, we need to get our heads out of the sand and realise that if Melbourne were actually a decent side like they had the opportunity to be 2-3 years ago, we'd probably be praising free agency for bringing us players, rather than pushing them away.

There's no reason why a club that is well managed and successful shouldn't be able to reap the benefits of that. Melbourne's being punished for being run like crap, and it's pushed good players away.

Edited October 2, 2014 by praha

[Fat Tony 5,245]

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here.

A few questions we need to ask:

1. Does free agency punish the "poor" teams, or the teams that are poorly managed?

2. A "rich" clubs immune from losing stars through free agency?

3. Is Melbourne losing Frawley, Sylvia and Rivers more a product of free agency, or the club's inability to satisfy player needs?

I can't help but wonder had Melbourne not been run by amateurs for most of the 00s and particularly 2008-2013, if we'd been able to retain those players.

1. If we were playing finals in 2011 as was envisioned in 2010, and if we were still playing finals, would Frawley still have left?

2. Is our inability to attract the likes of Dangerfield more telling of the club's past, the club's present, or the club's potential future?

Free agency isn't "killing the game": it's killing clubs that are poorly managed.

Port Adelaide went from a NOTHING club two years ago to suddenly a juggernaut that has the potential to overtake the Crows on and off the field. Free agency hasn't and probably won't hurt them: could we have said the same thing a few years ago?

Free agency was inevitable. Rather than pointing the finger at what should actually be a pretty simple transition for the game, let's consider how and why clubs like Melbourne appear to be suffering more than most.

And we all now why it is: it's not free agency that is pushing players away from Melbourne. It's Melbourne pushing players away from Melbourne.

It's a new era and this is make or break for the club. Continue to be run like a nothing club, and you will get nothing in return.

You need to *earn* respect, not expect it. Frawley leaving is not a surprise and it shouldn't be.

We're blaming free agency when really, we need to get our heads out of the sand and realise that if Melbourne were actually a decent side like they had the opportunity to be 2-3 years ago, we'd probably be praising free agency for bringing us players, rather than pushing them away.

There's no reason why a club that is well managed and successful shouldn't be able to reap the benefits of that. Melbourne's being punished for being run like crap, and it's pushed good players away.

Garbage.

[praha 11,240]

Garbage.

Totes constructive response.

[biggestred 5,107]

Very hard to be a good team and therefore respected when your best players who you spend 8 years developing leave.

good players leave = more poor performance = more good players leave.

[Robbie57 2,021]

Totes constructive response.

My response was going to be bollocks so I think garbage is constructive by comparison.

What we have witnessesed is a perfect storm of ill thought out changes by the AFL.

Compromised drafts around the time of free agency have damaged the lower clubs in general, irrespective of management in place.

What we have witnessed are major structural changes that are causing the problem. To an extent operational performance may mitigate or exacerbate the outcomes but they will not change the underlying structural problem these decisions have caused.

[Louie 39]

_{Not everyone can play for a successful team or have success in their playing career, it just doesn't work. All these young uns expect success and believe their longevity at a [censored] club means they deserve success elsewhere. Additionally, not every club can make the finals or be a contender. What I don't understand is how will the crap clubs ever get better if they have their free agents continually seeking out greener pastures. I like what someone recently wrote about banding things up so top 4 couldn't get FA's etc. Also interesting to see that most FA's are getting signed up on juicy long term deals, like their new clubs understand they are dealing with money hungry grubs.}

_{Edit: To get the font size bigger than ants.}

Edited October 2, 2014 by Louie

[Whispering_Jack 30,236]

I haven't heard such double speaking shite in a while.

Were you not listening when Mark Evans pronounced the reasons for not giving Melbourne draft assistance a week or two ago?

[The Song Formerly Known As 6,479]

_{Not everyone can play for a successful team or have success in their playing career, it just doesn't work. All these young uns expect success and believe their longevity at a [censored] club means they deserve success elsewhere. Additionally, not every club can make the finals or be a contender. What I don't understand is how will the crap clubs ever get better if they have their free agents continually seeking out greener pastures. I like what someone recently wrote about banding things up so top 4 couldn't get FA's etc. Also interesting to see that most FA's are getting signed up on juicy long term deals, like their new clubs understand they are dealing with money hungry grubs.}

[Ouch! 2,266]

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here.

A few questions we need to ask:

1. Does free agency punish the "poor" teams, or the teams that are poorly managed?

2. A "rich" clubs immune from losing stars through free agency?

3. Is Melbourne losing Frawley, Sylvia and Rivers more a product of free agency, or the club's inability to satisfy player needs?

I can't help but wonder had Melbourne not been run by amateurs for most of the 00s and particularly 2008-2013, if we'd been able to retain those players.

1. If we were playing finals in 2011 as was envisioned in 2010, and if we were still playing finals, would Frawley still have left?

2. Is our inability to attract the likes of Dangerfield more telling of the club's past, the club's present, or the club's potential future?

Free agency isn't "killing the game": it's killing clubs that are poorly managed.

Port Adelaide went from a NOTHING club two years ago to suddenly a juggernaut that has the potential to overtake the Crows on and off the field. Free agency hasn't and probably won't hurt them: could we have said the same thing a few years ago?

Free agency was inevitable. Rather than pointing the finger at what should actually be a pretty simple transition for the game, let's consider how and why clubs like Melbourne appear to be suffering more than most.

And we all now why it is: it's not free agency that is pushing players away from Melbourne. It's Melbourne pushing players away from Melbourne.

It's a new era and this is make or break for the club. Continue to be run like a nothing club, and you will get nothing in return.

You need to *earn* respect, not expect it. Frawley leaving is not a surprise and it shouldn't be.

We're blaming free agency when really, we need to get our heads out of the sand and realise that if Melbourne were actually a decent side like they had the opportunity to be 2-3 years ago, we'd probably be praising free agency for bringing us players, rather than pushing them away.

There's no reason why a club that is well managed and successful shouldn't be able to reap the benefits of that. Melbourne's being punished for being run like crap, and it's pushed good players away.

Top clubs are more focused on taking players who are established, less of a risk, and fit a designated role to keep them up the top, whilst the lower clubs concern themselves with scurrying around after draft picks.

8 of the players that played for the Hawks on the weekend came from other clubs. 6 of the Sydney players came from other clubs.

Look at Geelong, North and Port at the moment, more concerned with snagging players from other clubs rather than what comes out of the draft. Roos strategy for us is the same.

Free agency has also driven a culture amongst players where even now instead of wanting to be 'traded' back home or away for better opportunity, they are publicly naming the club that they want to go to. Why does Clark get to nominate the club he wants to go to as a contracted player. Surely if the docs say he should leave to go to another club, doesn't that suggest that there are 17 other clubs... or even if you wanted to restrict it to Melbourne clubs, 9 other clubs in Melb that we should be able to negotiate with to get the best deal... not just one!

Poor clubs, poorly managed, underperforming, call it what you like, free agency kicks these clubs whilst they are down, it doesn't assist them in any way except for the compensation aspect of free agency which the AFLPA and the 'suprise suprise' clubs higher up are saying shouldn't be factored in.

Restricting free agency (in the fashion that I think GNF has suggested occurs in the NFL or NBA) might work where top 4 clubs cannot participate in free agents coming in etc, but as things stand the only free agents that are going to bottom end clubs are the discards from higher up clubs that no longer want those players anyway, and they can eke out a year or two more at the bottom clubs. This might sound harsh, but Rodan, Byrnes and even to a lesser extent someone like Cross (who I love as a player, don't get me wrong!) but they are free agents because they were pushed out the door by their current clubs.

[The Song Formerly Known As 6,479]

^{I think I've got the font working better now.}

stop yelling.

[autocol 448]

If I may play second devils advocate here... Y'all are drawing some major conclusions from some pretty limited data sets (yes, I'm a budding statistician, sue me).

In any situation where the standard deviation is relatively large compared to the mean, and the sample size is small, you'll regularly see data points a LONG way from the mean. At the moment, the number of free agent moves (not including delistings which aren't really the same thing) is less than 20. That's a tiny sample size. With the exception of Melbourne, the trend of movement from "big teams" to "small teams" or vice versa is basically non-existent. We are the only club exhibiting an enormous variance from the mean.

Usually what will happen in such a case is called "regression to the mean". As more data points are added, everything tends to move closer to the mean. Melbourne's free agency fortunes will likely follow the same path.

(Incidentally, you can see this data trend commonly occur in another area of footy - player performance. You know when a kid comes out and plays an absolute blinder on debut, but then seems to get worse until he's an average player? David Warner is an excellent example. The reverse can also be true - Kade Simpson I believe it was played THREE whole games without getting a touch. That's a LONG way from the mean and a highly unlikely event, but it happened even though he's a skilled player, and eventually he regressed to the mean as you'd expect and he's a perfectly good footballer).

In short, there's probably nothing wrong with free agency, we've just been unlucky so far (brought on largely by our own incompetence, I'd suspect).

[Return to Glory 8,443]

Were you not listening when Mark Evans pronounced the reasons for not giving Melbourne draft assistance a week or two ago?

I was going to say that I stand corrected Whispering but I'm not sure. This was utter shite from start to finish. It was a series of psychobabble quotes designed to defend why the top end talent go to top of the ladder clubs.

[jnrmac 20,104]

No wonder its a shiite boring 'competition' now. So 2 clubs have won 6 of the last 8 flags.

Well done AFL. Rules on the run have killed this comp over the past 12 years but the past 3 is the nail in the coffin of the weaker clubs.

[sue 9,107]

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here.

A few questions we need to ask:

1. Does free agency punish the "poor" teams, or the teams that are poorly managed?

2. A "rich" clubs immune from losing stars through free agency?

3. Is Melbourne losing Frawley, Sylvia and Rivers more a product of free agency, or the club's inability to satisfy player needs?

1. Both, but poor teams, as well as desperately needing better players, also tend to be more poorly managed, so it is a downward spiral.

2. No, but they just bring in a star from a lowly team or a player who suits their specific needs from another top team.

3. Do you wear a hairshirt?

[Ouch! 2,266]

Who here honestly believes that the next three AFL flags won't come from clubs inside the current top 6 teams.

The only 'interesting' thing in the comp at the moment, and keeping me interested is seeing how quickly Port turned things around, and hoping that Roos can do a similar thing.

[Return to Glory 8,443]

1. Both, but poor teams, as well as desperately needing better players, also tend to be more poorly managed, so it is a downward spiral.

2. No, but they just bring in a star from a lowly team or a player who suits their specific needs from another top team.

3. Do you wear a hairshirt?

I can't answer for Praha in relation to number three but many have said that Im like a young Magnum PI.

[poita 3,902]

The problem is that players leave better sides mainly for money, meaning that the lesser clubs have to pay overs to attract anyone half decent (hello Dawes & Clark). The minimum salary cap needs to be much less than 90%, because the remaining 10% is not nearly enough to cater for the 5-6 decent players that sides need to move up the ladder.

Players leave lesser sides for success, and players such as Lake, Frawley, etc are likely to take pay cuts to play finals, so you can squeeze more top end talent on to these lists.

And so the cycle continues forever and ever.

If the qualification period for free agency reduces to 5 or 6 years, players could easily qualify twice in their careers. So in time you will probably see a bloke like Dawes (but one who is actually good) pick up his massive pay check at a crap team for the required period then move to a finals contender on a pittance for the last few years of his career.

[sue 9,107]

The problem is that players leave better sides mainly for money, meaning that the lesser clubs have to pay overs to attract anyone half decent (hello Dawes & Clark). The minimum salary cap needs to be much less than 90%, because the remaining 10% is not nearly enough to cater for the 5-6 decent players that sides need to move up the ladder.

Players leave lesser sides for success, and players such as Lake, Frawley, etc are likely to take pay cuts to play finals, so you can squeeze more top end talent on to these lists.

And so the cycle continues forever and ever.

If the qualification period for free agency reduces to 5 or 6 years, players could easily qualify twice in their careers. So in time you will probably see a bloke like Dawes (but one who is actually good) pick up his massive pay check at a crap team for the required period then move to a finals contender on a pittance for the last few years of his career.

All true. Looking back after 20 years the satisfaction of winning a flag with a team you just joined must be a lot less than winning a flag with a team which struggled for years before winning a flag. Give the AFL time and we'll have players changing sides during the finals - maybe even at half time in the GF.

[Dockett 32 1,239]

I don't think the issue can essentially be described as one brought about by the differences in club management. Nor do I think its about giving players "at the margin" a greater opportunity either, yet it was one of the major initial selling points.

I'm not sure if it was a deliberate creation by player managers, AFL and the AFLPA/players for the current lop sided operation to evolve either.

What I do now know is, the smarties at the top clubs quickly determined how their 'competitive advantage' or 'advantaged position' on the ladder makes the system a beautiful vehicle for them to operate with and gain maximum benefit from. Often at the expense of those without the benefit of a quality ladder position.

So how is this in anyway equal?

Blind Freddy can see what's already gone on, having good players on two year contracts cycle is a recipe for having them picked off and that it has redefined the importance of the national draft to many clubs.

Its simply a crock now and the proposed 6 year option without far greater compensation suggests to me that the position is likely to get worse.

So who cares? Successful wealthy clubs don't, interstate clubs with the go home benefit(WA/SA) may not worry all that much, the other interstate franchises get questionable concessions and are fed by the AFL so they don't (yet, but look out, lets see how the GWS adventure pans out)leaving the cellar dwellers. Been banging on about all this for quite a while and the need for a full player movement review.

Criteria to participate and offsetting compensation seem to be the best ways to fix as I doubt if they want to open up a restraint of trade debate.

[daisycutter 29,621]

_{Not everyone can play for a successful team or have success in their playing career, it just doesn't work. All these young uns expect success and believe their longevity at a [censored] club means they deserve success elsewhere. Additionally, not every club can make the finals or be a contender. What I don't understand is how will the crap clubs ever get better if they have their free agents continually seeking out greener pastures. I like what someone recently wrote about banding things up so top 4 couldn't get FA's etc. Also interesting to see that most FA's are getting signed up on juicy long term deals, like their new clubs understand they are dealing with money hungry grubs.}

_{Edit: To get the font size bigger than ants.}

louie, you obviously never paid attention to joan kirner

everyone can be a winner

i believe the afl will be adopting a new finals system whereby 8 teams will be randomly picked for the finals.

no scores will be kept in these games and for the grand final 2 of these 8 teams will be selected from a barrel in a tv spectacular event complete with a red carpet parade

again no scores kept for the gf and both sides will be declared premiers

you just need a little faith your marble will come up