Brent Harvey suggests AFL strugglers should receive extra mid first-round draft pick
WITH the AFL looking at ways to help cellar-dwellers get their hands on more prized talent at the AFL Draft, an icon of the game has backed a plan that could see the battlers hit the fast track to success.
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NORTH Melbourne champion Brent Harvey has backed a dramatic overhaul of the draft which would deliver regular non-finalists an extra mid-first round pick.
The AFL has confirmed it is looking at rejigging the national draft to potentially offer struggling cellar-dwellers more access to prized talent.
Sydney premiership and Melbourne coach Paul Roos said the current system was “completely broken”, and believed additional list spots for mature age players would deliver more benefit than extra draft picks - especially for clubs such as Gold Coast.
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Harvey has backed one proposal which would gift any club which has missed finals for three or four years in a row a bonus draft pick in between choices No. 10-20.
He said there would be no chance a team would tank for a bonus draft pick because every team would want to play finals rather than deliberately miss September.
Harvey, who is the AFL’s games record holder, said the biggest challenge facing the game was improving the struggling clubs, rather than fixing broken rules or congestion.
“You look at Carlton and you look at Gold Coast who have been the main two teams this year, who have struggled and have had 100-point defeats - that’s probably the only thing wrong with the competition,” Harvey told the Herald Sun.
“Those teams not being able to climb the ladder as quick as everyone else.
“That’s why the priority pick works, and I think if you don’t make the finals for three or four years in a row, bang, you get one.”
Clubs are heavily opposed to the AFL handing out priority picks at the start of the draft order inside the top-five selections.
On Sunday Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge says he would be “disappointed” if the AFL made a shock ruling to hand clubs pre-draft priority picks ahead of his team’s No. 6 draft selection.
“I would be pretty disappointed if these compensation picks come in before us in the draft. Our demographic as far as youth versus mature age isn’t dissimilar,” he said.
“We are where we are on the ladder and we are building again but who knows how far away that is.
“If there is compensation there, we would hope they are at the back end of the first round or of the variety where you can trade it for mature-age talent.
“We anticipate an extra pick in there between ours and our first pick because of (Tom) Lynch but other than that I would hope there is nothing fresh in there between us and Lynch.”
Melbourne was in 2013 fined $500,000 for tanking in the 2009 season.
Harvey suggested an extra draft choice in between picks 10 and 20, which would be inserted into the draft order once all the non-finalists had received their first selections, would work best.
“It’s a great idea because extra pick is not at the start of the first round, which has been a problem in the past, and it’s not at the end of the first round, it’s right in the middle of the first round of the draft, which is perfect,” Harvey said.
“No one is going to tank to get this extra pick because if you miss finals two years in a row, you still want to play finals because the Bulldogs won a flag from seventh two years ago.
“So you still want to play finals no matter what.”
But Swans’ mastermind Roos said bottom-placed clubs such as Gold Coast and Carlton would benefit more from additional mature-age players.
He said the introduction of free agency had “created a monster” and that the addition of two new expansion teams had “diluted the talent pool”.
“It is not just one thing that you have to change, you have to change the system because it is completely broken, it’s not working,” Roos said on Triple M.
“So to think you can give one extra pick to the bottom-four teams and think that’s going to make a difference is farcical, because if you get that pick wrong, what happens?
“It makes no difference whatsoever.
“You have already given out draft picks hand-over-fist, which hasn’t worked.
“Why wouldn’t we give the bottom teams five extra players and they have to be between 21-24 years old, so you are getting guys from state leagues who have busted their backsides (to play AFL).
“They are going to make difference, they are going to buy into a system.”
HOW IT WOULD WORK
Every club which misses finals receives a draft pick in order.
Then, every club which has missed finals for four-straight seasons receives a bonus pick, starting with the lowest-placed club at No. 11.
Those clubs alternate bonus selections with the finalists’ first picks.
HOW THE 2018 DRAFT WOULD LOOK:
1. Carlton
2. Gold Coast
3. St Kilda
4. Brisbane
5. Fremantle
6. Western Bulldogs
7. Adelaide
8. Essendon
9. North Melbourne
10. Port Adelaide
11. CARLTON (bonus)
12. Geelong
13. GOLD COAST (bonus)
14. Melbourne
15. ST KILDA (bonus)
16. GWS Giants
17. BRISBANE (bonus)
18. Sydney Swans
19. Hawthorn
20. Collingwood
21. West Coast
22. Richmond
* before yesterday’s West Coast — Melbourne game.
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Originally published as Brent Harvey suggests AFL strugglers should receive extra mid first-round draft pick