Clubs in the dark over changes to NGA as bumper crop looms

Change is overdue as far as the MFC is concerned. We recruited only one player and, in one fell swoop, the AFL took our NT academy zone away from us and never replaced it. Oh well ...

Without much media attention and minimal fuss, the “level playing field” of the modern game is being dug up and becoming less and less transparent  

They need to ditch the whole idea.

Jealousy about a few players from Northern State academies gave us an unworkable system.

We have a commission for a reason and they didn't stand up when they should have.

I have often wondered about the NGAs and why MFC don’t seem to have one established in the NT as we were the only teams who would regularly play there. 
 

If we don’t have one in NT, where is our NGA? 

Scrap the whole lot.

System is a farce really.

So they wait until the favoured few have cashed in then decide to change the system before anyone else can?  Is that about right? 

I do think that Melbourne hasn't done enough with our zone though.  There's a huge African migrant community that we haven't tapped into at all.  We should have put a lot of time and effort into clinics in the SE region to identify and develop the best of the talent we have access to.

Think they should have an academy run by the AFL.  Then have an NGA draft. 

Father Son picks in normal draft with discounts as part of the tradition of the game.

13 hours ago, buck_nekkid said:

Think they should have an academy run by the AFL.  Then have an NGA draft. 

Agree with you @buck_nekkid. Having each club run an academy sounds problematic from both cost and quality-consistency perspectives. NGA draft also takes the 'pot-luck' element out of it.

The whole system is counter-intuitive. The AFL provides both payments and resources to clubs to pick out players that are in their region that can bring them into an AFL system. From my understanding, Clubs are incentivised to browse the junior competitions in their region for players that meet the Academy/NGA guidelines and cherry pick the best and work with these in the hope of consistently having top tier talent every year (ie.Sydney/GWS/Brisbane/Gold Coast). But the AFL is providing the resources and investment at the same time  into elite talent development at a national level which does the same thing but at scale. 

It would make more sense to have one nation-wide system in every region managed by the AFL that helps drive overall talent, upskilled coaching, umpiring and players across the country and internationally. Instead of paying money for each club, they could make much more efficient and effective development of players which would not only increase the amount of talent available for drafts (which would be fair and equitable) but they would also grow wider interest in the game. 

Geelong became a powerhouse partly due to inequitable Father-son rules at the time

Hawthorn became a powerhouse partly due to the introduction of two new clubs and free agency which delayed the rebuilding process of teams during that time. 

It is too early to tell if the current system will unfairly stack the deck in favour of teams in Sydney/QLD, will make rebuilding harder/longer, or if increased player movement and power keeps these teams honest. Time will tell. The best thing that could happen to the game would be a better management from the AFL Head Office to be ahead of the curb on all game related issues. 

Changes planned.

REPORT: AFL PLANNING MAJOR CHANGE TO DRAFT RULES

It seems a decision has been made:

"The AFL is also cutting back its next generation academy concessions. From 2021, NGA picks can only be matched from picks 21 onwards, while from 2022 NGA picks can only be matched from picks 41 onwards".

This protects round 1 next year and round 2 in 2022.  A great move by the AFL as the NGA matching has made this years draft a farce.  Espcially as many clubs don't actually do anything to develop them, they just happen to live in a club's designated zone and would have gone into the draft anyway.

4 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

It seems a decision has been made:

"The AFL is also cutting back its next generation academy concessions. From 2021, NGA picks can only be matched from picks 21 onwards, while from 2022 NGA picks can only be matched from picks 41 onwards".

This protects round 1 next year and round 2 in 2022.  A great move by the AFL as the NGA matching has made this years draft a farce.  Espcially as many clubs don't actually do anything to develop them, they just happen to live in a club's designated zone and would have gone into the draft anyway.

The whole thing was a farce from the start.

Eddie and co pulled the wool over the commissions eyes.

All because of a couple of good academy players that Sydney and GWS picked up.

The commission were really p...weak in how they handled the situation.

At least now it's being scaled back.

i don't like it ngl, its swings and round abouts its not always the same side benefitting and i like the sentimental connection that comes into these kind of deals where u sign soneone who you've been working with for a long time. 

the change i would've made is the eligibility critera. i had two mates at school and at a good school who were NGA prospects one had a mum born in south africa but she was as aussie as ever a part from literally place of birth and the other had mexican heritage but it was still at a stretch and u wouldnt know unless u asked. i think they should have tightened the screws on who is eligible to join academies in the first place because somehow not it will put clubs off investing too much because if they help a prospect become too good they'll lose access to them and that doesn't make sense why would u bother if you aren't even going to benefit from all the years of work you've put into them and the relationship between them and club you've created

30 minutes ago, Turner said:

i don't like it ngl, its swings and round abouts its not always the same side benefitting and i like the sentimental connection that comes into these kind of deals where u sign soneone who you've been working with for a long time. 

the change i would've made is the eligibility critera. i had two mates at school and at a good school who were NGA prospects one had a mum born in south africa but she was as aussie as ever a part from literally place of birth and the other had mexican heritage but it was still at a stretch and u wouldnt know unless u asked. i think they should have tightened the screws on who is eligible to join academies in the first place because somehow not it will put clubs off investing too much because if they help a prospect become too good they'll lose access to them and that doesn't make sense why would u bother if you aren't even going to benefit from all the years of work you've put into them and the relationship between them and club you've created

that port adelaide legend daryl borlase's son is eligible for the adelaide crows' nga by dint of being born in egypt while daryl was working for the wool board there says a lot about how insane these nga 'rules' are