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AFL Draft Day 2016 is here and in a way I don't mind that the Demons have been relegated to bit players in today's proceedings. In the first instance, this year's draft is highly compromised by virtue of some poor decisions made by the AFL which strike at the very heart of the integrity of the competition. In that respect, if there is a time to be far away from the draft action, this is it. The first player whose name is called out tonight will be an Essendon player because the Bombers finished last in 2016. This is despite the fact that ten of their best and most experienced players sat out the season as a consequence of the findings in January by the Court of Arbitration in Sport that they along with many of their then teammates had violated anti-doping rules. The ink on the court ruling had barely dried when the AFL decided that Essendon would receive no sanction as a result of its role in those violations (other than the previous penalties for poor governance). The fact that the club's performance in 2016 would not truly reflect on the quality of its list was deemed irrelevant - hence a McCluggage or a McGrath will most likely become a Bomber this evening. The league's weakest club Brisbane won't even have second pick this evening. That will go to its love child GWS Giants which will be the power club of this draft. The Giants did a trade to get into this position so that it could chose a player before its academy bidding selections come into operation which is a solid move because they have a big crop of academy players at their disposal this year. The academy concept was brought in to give the northern states first access to talent in developing regions outside the game's traditional recruiting areas. The clubs in question were to be rewarded for nurturing such talent. The problem with this is that for some reason the Giants have been given the Riverina district as part of their academy region. This is an area that one could hardly describe as "developing" in AFL terms given that the game has been long established there and has produced plenty of champions. Wayne Carey, the Danihers, Paul Kelly anyone? What is even less understandable is the concept of the amount of "development" these clubs are supposed to put into players. The first academy member expected to be chosen tonight by the Giants is Will Setterfield, a star midfielder from Albury who relocated to Melbourne as a 15-year-old, attends Caulfield Grammar and played for the Sandringham Dragons this year. That's a long way from Western Sydney in my book. The Giants will most likely get Setterfield by using bidding points associated with their pick number 15 but should they even be going into the draft with that selection? When Lachie Whitfield and two former GWS officials accepted penalties in a deal with the AFL for their part in the scandal involving the hiding of the Giants’ youngster from possible drug testing, scandal (more than a year and a half after the event), it was thought the club would be sanctioned by losing a first and second round draft pick. GWS balked at that and have now been charged with conduct unbecoming over the role in the affair. What this has done in all likelihood is delayed the inevitable but given the fact that next year’s GWS academy crop is not likely to be as strong or as deep as this year’s, the club will have derived enormous benefit from its own stalling and from the snail’s pace the AFL adopted in this matter. If only, the AFL were as quick to decide on Whitfield as they were with the Essendon decision on the draft. Then there’s selection 19 which was recently gifted by the AFL to Brisbane as an end of first round priority pick on account of the Lions’ poor list – a decision that flew in the face of previous decisions made by the AFL on draft assistance applied for by other clubs, particularly Melbourne which had a far worse record than Brisbane when it made its plea for help a couple of years ago. The Lions traded the pick which is now in the hands of Sydney. So this is the most compromised draft in years – actually since the leg up the AFL gave its new franchises earlier in the decade. The draft itself is said to be not as strong at the top as in the past couple of years or as expected next year. The word is that the quality is deep and even. It will take some brilliance and a lot of luck for Jason Taylor and his team to produce the goods with only picks 47 and 68 at their disposal.