The AFL’s mid-season draft is another threat to the integrity of the SANFL and must be challenged

The SANFL should consider offering financial incentives for players to stay at their state league clubs, rather than leave in the AFL’s controversial mid-season rookie draft, says Graham Cornes.

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The SANFL cannot sit idly and watch as the AFL mid-season rookie draft on May 27 rips players out of local clubs.

This draft has the potential to derail a club’s season and disrupt the lives of those ambitious, hopeful players who are summoned.

The AFL is effectively rewarding its clubs for their recruiting incompetence by giving them another chance to pick young players who, in this numbers game that is AFL recruiting, are still unlikely to play a game.

Already we are seeing disingenuous but strategic retirements and emotional send-offs as clubs make room on their lists and prepare to ravage local leagues of their best talent. Significantly, they are not only looking for back-up players, they are stockpiling young talent before the end-of-season draft.

It should never have come to this. In typical AFL fashion it has determined an outcome before considering the process or the impact.

You can’t blame the clubs who, despite their enormous budgets will still seek cheap, easy options. For instance, why are Cam Ellis-Yolmen and Lachie Murphy, players who have been so important to the Crows revival this season, still only on the rookie list?

You can’t blame the players either.

Adelaide’s Cam Ellis-Yolmen in action against Sturt in the SANFL. Picture: Tom Huntley

Footballers who have dreamed of playing in the big league since they could hold a football will grasp at any lifeline and believe any promise, however empty that promise may be.

Besides, there’s money involved.

A player who is selected in this mid-season draft will immediately be on a contract that is worth nearly a $1000 a week.

In the unlikely event he plays a game for that AFL team, he will also receive the basic match payment.

Under the current AFL Players Collective Bargaining Agreement the basic match payment for a first year player is $4000 per game.

Of course a young footballer will be reaching out for that lifeline despite the history of mid-year drafts showing that so few will ever play a game and be retained on the list at season’s end. Besides, if the player is delisted at the end of this season he will also receive a $20,000 lump sum payment. Where do I sign?

The situation here in Adelaide is more complicated by the presence of the Crows and Port reserve teams in the SANFL.

It must be said that when this new mid-season draft was mooted by the AFL both Adelaide and Port did vote against it.

However, now it has been introduced they can’t be disadvantaged, so they have accepted it. That means if they select a player from within the SANFL from say, Norwood or Glenelg, that player will immediately transfer into the AFL system. It seems outrageous.

There is one glimmer of hope that it won’t be as devastating to the SANFL clubs as first anticipated and that is that these mid-season rookie player payments fall outside the mandatory AFL salary cap. As silly as it seems, not every AFL club is financial enough to make them.

So what can the SANFL do to protect its clubs from this belligerent raid on their players?

The simplest thing is to provide ex-gratia payments outside of the SANFL clubs’ salary cap so that any player who is drafted is not financially disadvantaged and can be convinced to stay.

It would allow the SANFL clubs to match AFL payments for the rest of that season. As radical as that sounds, it has some precedent.

Norwood’s Gary McIntosh with Michael Aish, pictured in 1990, both stayed in the SANFL.

In the late 1980s, when its clubs were being ravaged by the wanton drafting of their players by the feckless VFL clubs, the SANFL introduced a Player Retention Scheme which rewarded those players who loyally stayed with their clubs.

It was a tempestuous time when any SANFL player who had shown some potential was being drafted and leaving.

However, many, including the better ones — Chris McDermott, Garry McIntosh, Andrew Jarman, Michael Aish, stayed until the advent of the Crows changed everything.

It was expensive then but a scheme to thwart the AFL’s mid-season draft in today’s climate would not be anywhere near as expensive and would only involve a couple of SANFL players.

The SANFL, despite its strict budgetary controls, could afford these ex-gratia payments and could thwart the disruption to its season.

The other thing the SANFL could do is to rework the conditions of its standard player contract which allows a player to walk out of the SANFL if he is drafted.

That could, however, result in ill-will between a club and the player who is desperate for an AFL-lifeline.

Still, if that player is good enough and destined for an AFL career, he will still be selected in the national draft at the end of the year.

West Adelaide footballer David Twomey holding SANFL Player Retention Lottery tickets in 1988. Picture: Ray Titus

The SANFL insists that from the moment the AFL mid-season draft was mooted it lobbied hard and continuously against it but its pleas to the AFL were summarily dismissed. There must be some consequence to the AFL’s arrogance.

South Adelaide has already lost players and may be faced with losing its leading ruckman, Michael Knoll, who won the Fos Williams Medal in the recent SA/WA state clash. The SANFL should do as much as it can to assist the clubs to retain their players.

On the other hand the AFL has to admit the folly of a mid-season rookie draft and replace it with better alternatives.

For instance, increase the size of clubs’ playing lists — 38 to 40 is too small. (When the Crows started in 1991, there were 52 players on the list.)

It must also allow for club needs and player movement with a mid-year free trade period like most other professional sports have. It must also raise the draft age to account for late developers.

The AFL is the dominant Australian sport. It has a giant, Goliath-like presence. We cannot let that giant become an ogre. Sometimes David (in this case the SANFL) wins — but he first has to front up.