I wrote these notes down when all the "raise the draft age" furore was around at the time so I'll present my thoughts here which are a bit random so they'll be in a dot point form with no real fluidity but you'll get my idea/s anyway, some of which can be done, some which can't and some stuff I'm just throwing at the wall.
As usual let me know your thoughts!
Back in high school (the 90's!) one of best mates was playing Geelong Falcons which was a pretty big deal back then for a country kid with recruiters not to looking as far and wide as they do these days.
He was 6"2" and would have been 90kgs so a fair sized unit for a 17 - 18yr old kid.
He was key position as he fit the size requirements of those positions at the time but actually ended up playing AFL reserves for half the year for Melbourne I think instead of Falcons, playing center half and full back against men.
He was holding his own and would admit to you even now that his eye was set firmly on being drafted in his draft year and not much else.
He even made the TAC Cup Team of the Year.
He had a history of hamstring injuries a junior (too big too soon?), and I'm pretty sure he suffered another ham tear near the end of the season, if not finishing his season (hey this is 25yrs ago so don't quote me fully on this timeline.)
We had a big party at his house for his "going away" - so sure he would be moving away to play footy but came draft day...nothing.
He had the next year totally off from footy then slowly filtered back into footy via local footy to forge a pretty good Hamden league career (a top 6 or 8 league in Victoria I believe) but he would have almost been mid 20's by the time he got back to enjoying and playing high level again.
I would love to sit with him and talk about this sometime to find out what he was feeling throughout all this time and it would be good to document for future passed over draftees.
I am a big believer in raising the AFL draft age or at least restructuring the entire under 18/AFL reserves competitions and I'll list my suggestions and reasons below in no particular order.
18 v 21 YEAR OLDS
The physical and psychological difference between high school aged kids of the same age (16 - 18yrs old), let alone young adults (18 - 21yrs old) can be huge and I should know being 168cms and 55kgs in high school trying to play senior football against grown farmers in the western district.
Aerobically and anaerobically I was up to it but physically and psychologically I wasn't with the jump from under 18's to senior footy being too big of a jump for someone my size. The very same problem we have in this instance but at the highest level where the difference is 100x worse.
Life experiences where you've been put in situations out of your comfort zone where you can tread water but not drown is what builds emotional intelligence, an extremely underrated aspect required for team sports and can take years to master.
"CURRENT" TALENT RULES
There's so many "elite" footy academy programs now that elite and academy have been watered down to almost nothing - Paul Roos once said that "the TAC competition is not elite", and he was right.
The current thought process is that right now to even get the slightest of look ins by anything close to an AFL recruiter, you must be "in the pathway" which is elitist at its best.
Most AFL draftees have been in this pathway since they were 12 years old in some shape of form but is it the patheway that develops these kids into draftees or do the most talented kids right now, get through every year?
If we go back to my mate in the introduction then it would not be suprising that a 17 year that big and playing against other 17 year olds, some possibly close my ridiculous minute statue at the time, would totally dominate any game he played in.
This is the case all through juniors so once you're big and good, you're always big and good, and the pathway doesn't really matter does it, even though it seems like it's done it's job.
The biggest problem with these pathways is what happens to the 2nd tier players in these pathways, like my mate above.
He should have had somewhere to go to keep his dream alive, and so should any 18yr old who misses out on being drafted.
The VFL is a solid comp but I think it's half professional at best and probably not close enough to what AFL teams do and thus the gap to go from one to the other if you're good enough and then to have an impact can be too great, especially the very next year (Michael Gibbons from Carlton).
18 YEAR OLDS VS 18 YEAR OLDS
Looks an even fight doesn't it from an age point of view but again look at me vs my mate - 25+cms and 30kgs difference.
At lower levels, say under 15/16, the difference between players born in Jan to June that year can already be out of proportion to the players born between July and Dec that same year, let alone "underage" players.
The most developed players might only be playing against 5 kids their own size essentially and then in 12 months time are expected to hold their own against 22 players bigger them them.
The extra development of the top age kids, which might not seem like a lot at first glance can again mean they simply get through on their current talent level alone, having not really been challenged, and by playing against players that cannot actually challenge them in any shape or form.
Thus they don't really develop at all - they are just always 6 months ahead of everyone else until everything evens up at senior level.
THE DEVELOPMENT YEARS (18 - 21)
You always hear and read of professional coaches in all sports saying how high draft picks are never really ready contribute in any meaningful way and they're right - they're still kids!
Looking at American sports you can clearly see the physical development the players attain when they are a part of a college program, especially in American Football.
You don't see it much in the NBA anymore but when you do, a 3 - 4 year college player is already physically up to competing and more often then not, tactically and technically ready too.
High school players not wanting to go to college but not being able to be drafted until they're 19 are now looking at overseas leagues to help develop them in a more elite environment for the NBA, such as LaMelo Ball here in the NBL this past 2019/20 season, a projected top 5 pick in the next NBA draft.
Not in the AFL though, we take these gawky looking kids and put them straight into the big leagues, with all the pressure from fans put on them and the club to somehow take them from zero to hero in as quick as time as possible, and when that pressure is there like we know it is, you're bound to miss a few steps just to get the line and you'll have an incomplete player at the end of it.
In the end you'll cut short their careers as they'll have deficiencies that now probably can't be fixed and the quality of play league wide suffers as well (some might say that's already happened).
ABBREVIATED TRAINING PROGRAMS
I don't think it's a big secret that draftees do probably 60% of the loading the rest of the senior group does and for good reason - a lot of them aren't developed physically and pschologically to be able to handle it at such a young age but wouldn't it stand to reason that if you need to abbreviate the preparation of a player then they're probably not quite ready for games, which you can't abbreviate once you're out there?
That's a bit black and white I know but it shows that some form of long term development structure between underage football and AFL is definitely needed, not just have a player for a year to get them up to a minum standard and let them go to the AFL - you're causing the same problems just 12 months down the track.
BRING BACK THE SUB RULE?
I'm not sure if they still do now but some countrty leagues allowed senior teams to have 23 players with the 23rd man being an underage player that would be used as a sub like the AFL used to do.
It wouldn't be a popular choice by any means but if draftees are only doing abbreviated programs then the sub rule is perfect them as then you can abbreviate games to fit where they're at physically and psychologically.
Maybe this can be used in whatever development/reserves competition is going around to really ease players into a higher level football which would allow late developers the chance to stay in the "pathway" as the pressure is off them to perform immediately.
SYSTEMIC STRESS
Getting back to the under 18 comp again now as it stands, the best players get by by doing just 1 thing better then the rest of the kids whether it be speed, size or endurance - it's usually something physical - and tactally/technically sound kids get looked over because of "poor" combine results (back to that later).
This means that kids are only being tested in maybe 1 or 2 co-actives at a high level at the 1 time at under 18 level, even at NAB level.
My mate would have been one of biggest players in under 18's so he cruised on that front and psychologically he had the confidence because of his size that he could play well against anyone.
Technically he was so big he could create time and space most of the time so technical skill under pressure probably wasn't a big issue either and tactically the game was nowhere near what it is now in that sense.
Thrown into the AFL system at 18 and th3ese kids are now being stressed through the roof on all 4 co-actives 24hrs a day, 7 days a week and without having been exposed to anything even remotely like this before, something has to give and that's usually their bodies, and once you have an injury then your risk for reinjury rises dramtically no matter how much rehab you do.
Psychologically this wears on you constantly putting even more stress into your system, and the cycle continues but gets even worse.
You have to look way deeper then if a player can handle a 1-on-1 marking contest or a basic running load.
Every decision a player has to make is a stress on the body.
AFL ROOKIE CONTRACTS
As I understand it, rookie contracts are 2 year - yes, 2 year - contracts...some investment that is.
What often ends up happening is that mid-way through year 1, the "ready made" rookies who can play almost immediately at AFL level, renew their 2nd contract.
This makes zero sense to me really.
You've had an 18yr old in your club for 7mins and you're already extending them?
How do you know how they'll develop?
How do you know that they can handle the ever increasing training and game loads that occur each year?
Will they contuinue to be able to deal with the AFL psychologically?
There is simply too much pressure on player and club to deliver anything meaningful in such a short time span.
Rookie contracts should be 3 years minimum and that seems about the right length in that hopefully you can get all players regardless of their starting point up to full training loads by season 3 in a safe and low injury risk manner.
Then in that last season of their rookie contract, you can now get a real good look at what they're capable of either at AFL level or the reserves level, whatever it might be.
From a payment point of view, any ready made players straight out out of the underage comp into the AFL can have incentive aspects to their contracts for top 10 best and fairest, rising star awards etc to beef up income a little if that's going to be an issue from the players association.
I'm sure we can mostly agree that $85k for a kid straight out of school with no life skills can cause a variety of issues, especially combined with free time.
Part 2 tomorrow.
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