Ollie Greeves is a prodigious Indigenous talent at the Eastern Ranges in the Coates Talent League and Hawthorn have been working hard to get him included as one of their Next Generation Academy players - Hawks seek to add talented midfield prospect to NGA.

The case of Melbourne’s NGA player  Tairon Ah-Mu is different. He has parents with Samoan heritage but strangely enough, the club doesn’t have access to him under NGA rules even though the game is as foreign to that country as it is in many other countries where eligibility is available.

This makes no sense, yet where are the Demons and why aren’t they trying to get this player added to our ranks?

 

  On 26/02/2025 at 05:55, Whispering_Jack said:

Ollie Greeves is a prodigious Indigenous talent at the Eastern Ranges in the Coates Talent League and Hawthorn have been working hard to get him included as one of their Next Generation Academy players - Hawks seek to add talented midfield prospect to NGA.

The case of Melbourne’s NGA player  Tairon Ah-Mu is different. He has parents with Samoan heritage but strangely enough, the club doesn’t have access to him under NGA rules even though the game is as foreign to that country as it is in many other countries where eligibility is available.

This makes no sense, yet where are the Demons and why aren’t they trying to get this player added to our ranks?

 

Totally agree with your comments.

It is disgracefully unfair! 😡

I am still hoping that our President Brad Green can put aside a mere 10 minutes or so to write a formal letter of complaint to the AFL about this matter.

We should be lobbying the AFL to change this grossly unfair set of rules that denies us access to Tairon Ah-Mu.

If the AFL tick this off it will be a disgrace. Wanting to add a player in their last year of junior footy would be an absolute rort. This comes back to my view that a player should have to be in the academy for at least 2-3 seasons to be eligible as an academy player.

North tried this a year and a half ago with Ryley Sanders and the AFL said no, so will be interesting to see what they do this time.

Edited February 26Feb 26 by DistrACTION Jackson

Going to be a very good player Greeves. On a side note big Tairon suffered a medical episode at Stingrays training a few weeks ago and just collapsed. He has undergone tests to find out the cause and is on very light duties. 

Get rid of the academies....nothing good has come of this hare brained idea.

I will try to put this carefully but I swear they’re just trying to troll us with players making late claims to Aboriginality purely to avoid the draft. This is the 3rd such case of a highly rated player attempting to become academy eligible in their draft year. Maybe that’s wildly wrong but it doesn’t seem authentic. 

I’m not trying to deny anyone their ancestry but when it comes to joining the academy surely it has to be established before you join. The entire point of the academies is to find guys who are disadvantaged and help their footballing journeys, not to find star talents then sneak them in for draft advantages.

  On 26/02/2025 at 07:23, rjay said:

Get rid of the academies....nothing good has come of this hare brained idea.

Agree. 

Northern clubs will complain, but they full well knew the challenges of choosing to establish themselves in the locations they did. If you got rid of academies though, you’d have to scrap father/son rules too. Get rid of FA compensation picks and priority picks and we could finally have a draft that is 100% untainted.

My boss son has been invited to the Magpies NGA as he was born in Singapore. His family is an Anglo white Aussie as you’d ever meet - born while dad worked in Singapore! It’s a farce 

  On 26/02/2025 at 09:48, 1964nowMORE said:

My boss son has been invited to the Magpies NGA as he was born in Singapore. His family is an Anglo white Aussie as you’d ever meet - born while dad worked in Singapore! It’s a farce 

See with cases like this, I can understand the pathway might be useful.

If he grew up in Singapore and move back to Australia aged 15, he is effectively coming from somewhere without any development pathways.

But that being said, I think you should be nutring players in the academies for a number of years before they are eligible for draft concessions.

  On 26/02/2025 at 05:55, Whispering_Jack said:

where are the Demons and why aren’t they trying to get this player added to our ranks?

do you know for certain that we haven't tried?

  On 26/02/2025 at 10:00, deanox said:

 

But that being said, I think you should be nutring players in the academies for a number of years before they are eligible for draft concessions.

Think that's a bit harsh. 😰

  On 26/02/2025 at 08:18, Demon Disciple said:

we could finally have a draft that is 100% untainted.

Surely the AFL could never consider such an equitable situation 😮😮

  On 26/02/2025 at 10:02, whatwhat say what said:

do you know for certain that we haven't tried?

No idea.

 

  On 26/02/2025 at 09:48, 1964nowMORE said:

My boss son has been invited to the Magpies NGA as he was born in Singapore. His family is an Anglo white Aussie as you’d ever meet - born while dad worked in Singapore! It’s a farce 

Well Ollie Greeve looks very much like you mentioned. plus hawks just try and grab him last minute. wow. 

  On 26/02/2025 at 07:23, rjay said:

Get rid of the academies....nothing good has come of this hare brained idea.

It hurts because our club hasn’t benefited greatly from the system but I think they are a necessary evil to keep the game growing at a grass roots level and to keep the best talent in the country away from other codes (particularly in northern states).  And to keep them going there needs to be some benefit to the clubs who support them.  
 

I agree though that putting dibs on a player late in his junior career (with little involvement in his development to date) is an absolute farce. 

  On 26/02/2025 at 23:52, The Jackson FIX said:

It hurts because our club hasn’t benefited greatly from the system but I think they are a necessary evil to keep the game growing at a grass roots level and to keep the best talent in the country away from other codes (particularly in northern states).  And to keep them going there needs to be some benefit to the clubs who support them.  
 

I agree though that putting dibs on a player late in his junior career (with little involvement in his development to date) is an absolute farce. 

I don't know if you're old enough to have experienced the zone system that was around in the VFL days.

It's part of the reason our club was in the wilderness for so long.

Development should be handled by the AFL rather than the clubs. It is their responsibility to grow the game.

If the AFL did their job then players brought through their pathways (not the cubs) would be available to all clubs in the draft.

The current system is heading the way of the zones and is open to be rorted. Stories are legendary as to what went down in the "good" old days and it wasn't just brown paper bags...

The draft needs to lose all the concessions. Academies should be AFL run and not club run. Every player should go to the draft. Grassroots footy is the AFL’s responsibility. New teams should get agreed picks and trades over an agreed number of years and then play with the big boys. The fact GC get so many concessions still just shows why they shouldn’t exist.

  On 26/02/2025 at 06:14, Supreme_Demon said:

Totally agree with your comments.

It is disgracefully unfair! 😡

I am still hoping that our President Brad Green can put aside a mere 10 minutes or so to write a formal letter of complaint to the AFL about this matter.

We should be lobbying the AFL to change this grossly unfair set of rules that denies us access to Tairon Ah-Mu.

How do you know he hasn't ?

  On 27/02/2025 at 02:25, Viscount Cardwell said:

How do you know he hasn't ?

True, we can only speculate.

I would hope that due to MFC President Brad Green's commitment to transparency that he would tell us if a formal complaint about the NGA system has been in motion. However, perhaps the MFC is waiting for a response from the AFL first.

Anyway, I guess I am still angry that the Demons missed out on Mac Andrew a couple of years ago.

 

  On 03/03/2025 at 05:27, Demonland said:

 

Glad to see there is some semblance of integrity in the AFL…

So sad for Dingley!

Grew up in Camberwell with a Hawthorn supporting older brother so can't standem!