Rucci’s Roast: In-season trading during 2020 season will have unintended consequences and spell the end of the “one-club player”
Michelangelo Rucci takes a close look at the impacts — intentional and otherwise — of the 2020 AFL in-season trade window.
Prepare for extreme player movement in the AFL market — and all the unintended consequences for clubs, players and fans as headquarters prepares to add an in-season trading period to the recruiting calendar next year.
In 2020, it will be quite possible for a player to go from a state league to the national AFL and wear three club jumpers in less than 12 months. It will put the AFL on par with so many other professional sporting leagues that have long lost the “one-club” player.
AFL national draft across two days in late November. AFL pre-season draft in November-December. AFL supplementary rookie rules from December to March. AFL mid-season draft in May. AFL mid-season trading in June. AFL end-of-season trading in October.
And then start the sequence all over again. Never before in AFL company — and not since the 1970s era of June 30 clearance deadlines in the VFL, SANFL, WAFL and beyond — has there been so many opportunities for players to move from league to league, club to club.
But there are still several questions with the mid-season draft and trade options, in particular with how AFL contracts are absorbed in trades, how the salary cap is massaged to inherit a super contract from a rival club and if draft picks can be parcelled in mid-season trades — as they are in the October trade session.
There also is the longstanding question of just when should a teenager be drafted — 18 or 19? — to an AFL club.
Geelong premiership coach Chris Scott already has forecast “cultural” challenges to a team — and mental strain on individuals — as players deal with being cast as “trade bait” in the month before clearing a locker at one club and finding a new one elsewhere in the AFL.
Crows forward Riley Knight notes some AFL players stuck in the reserves will delight in the prospect of getting more opportunity to play in the big league by changing clubs in-season. But he also questions just how easy it will be for an AFL player to make a mark on the competition after switching clubs.
“It will be pretty difficult to move mid-year from club to club,” Knight told SEN1629. “Obviously, the move itself would not be difficult. But to learn a whole new game plan, a whole new way a coach wants to play and to build new relationships within a football club — that is going to be pretty hard to deal with over a really short period of time.
“So I am not too sure it will work …
“To have the freedom as a player to be able to explore (a change of clubs in-season) will be good for those who have played a lot of AFL and then find themselves in the seconds and struggling to get back in. There would be the opportunity to get back into the AFL at another club and keep building their footy from there.
“I can see both sides to it, but I think it will be pretty difficult to move mid-year and learn a whole new style and game plan.”
The minimum draft age — currently 18 — has drawn debate for a long time. Richmond premiership midfielder Kane Lambert is the pin-up boy for those who still advocate the draft age for entering the AFL should be lifted to at least 19.
The argument is based on prospective top-flight players becoming sounder on and off the field by gaining from life experiences in their first year away from high school before entering the bubble at an AFL club — just as Lambert did.
On his 18th birthday in late November 2009, Lambert collected his driver’s licence in the morning … and later had another dream fall away by not hearing his name called at the AFL national draft.
Lambert then stepped away from football — for a year. He spent 2010 standing at the end of a factory production line, lifting cans off the conveyor belt and stacking them onto pallets, from 7am till 3.30pm each day. Then he went to the gym, eager to build his 65kg frame while training harder than he had in any of his football sessions.
Today, Lambert looks back at his delayed entry to the AFL as justification to lifting the draft age. And he would go even further, as he told SEN1629, to change the way the AFL draft functions each November.
“I could not agree more,” Lambert said. “I’m not sure if that is because of the pathway I’ve been through, but I’d love to see the draft age go a little bit higher.
“Possibly, a club gets access to 18-year-olds as a first-round draftee. But if you are not selected in the first round, you need to have a year of university or full-time work. And then you can be drafted after a year of work or other experiences.
“It is very rare — unless you are Sam Walsh or Sydney Stack — where you can come in (to the AFL) at a really young age and have an impact. Those life experiences (after school) set you up for life after football — and help you when you are a footballer in a full-time AFL environment.”
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The Roast rolls on with its new format this week. On Tuesday, the enewsletter version will look at the fallout from AFL football boss Steve Hocking advocating more rule changes while the fans urge headquarters to leave the game alone.
And there are the numbers that tell of the Crows’ past two seasons after being the AFL pacesetter, minor premier and grand finalist in 2017.
And in Reality Bites, a VFL great is set for a return to Unley Oval for a very special moment to honour a Double Blues hero. The Roast will continue on Wednesday and Thursday each week on advertiser.com.au.