Gold Coast’s AFL rivals doubt draft concessions will help save battling club

Gold Coast has been gifted the best two young players in Australia as part of an emergency draft plan. However, rival clubs have raised doubts the concessions will be enough to save the Suns.

Gold Coast Suns Head Coach Stuart Dew will have his pick of the draft class this year. Picture: AAP

Rival club bosses doubt the AFL’s monster Gold Coast Suns rescue package will save the stricken club.

The league has handed the Suns an unprecedented three years worth of priority picks, including the first two selections in November’s national draft and the opening pick in the second round (pick 20).

The Suns will almost certainly claim Oakleigh Chargers best mates Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson with picks 1 and 2.

But Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett and Western Bulldogs counterpart Peter Gordon questioned the wisdom of the emergency concessions.

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“I think the AFL ought to explain how the steps it has announced will make the Suns better in 2020 and 2021,” Gordon told the Herald Sun.

“For me, it would have made more sense to provide those picks but to oblige the Suns to trade them for quality mature and experienced players, which is what they seem to lack and explains why their season tailed off so badly.

Gold Coast Suns Head Coach Stuart Dew will have his pick of the draft class this year. Picture: AAP

“The steps they’ve taken seem to me to be doing more of the same but expecting a different result.

“You’d hope these matters actually get discussed at commission meetings.”

Kennett declared that the AFL had refused to apologise or accept responsibility for its role in the continual failings of the club.

He said the priority picks would do little to stem the exodus of talent out of the $250 million expansion club.

Three former Suns — Dion Prestia, Tom Lynch and Josh Caddy — played in Richmond’s premiership side on Saturday.

“There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that young players in an exciting part of their life want to live in exciting environments, and those environments, sadly, are not the Gold Coast, because of the nature of it being a tourism destination,” Kennett said.

Matthew Rowell is seen as the best young player in the draft. Picture: AFLPhotos/Getty Images

“I’m not sure that this is going to produce the results that they (the AFL and Gold Coast) want.”

The Suns — handed a bonanza of draft concessions by the league when they launched in 2011 — will get a mid-first-round pick in next year’s draft, currently pick 11, and in 2021 the first selection in the second round, currently 19.

They will also be awarded Darwin as a regional academy, giving them exclusive access to the Top End's best talent — without having to match bids on draft night — and can sign up to 10 rookies, up from the standard six.

The struggling Suns finished at the foot of the AFL table. Picture: AAP

MORE ON THE SUNS’ DRAMA:

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The Gold Coast Suns’ woes can be traced back to the very beginnings of the club in 2010

Major clean out begins for Suns as struggling club looks to fresh start

Gold Coast Suns will ask AFL Commission for priority draft pick and longer contracts for draftees

Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett has blamed the AFL for the Gold Coast Suns’ struggles

Struggling Gold Coast Suns send seven staff on European junket

Kennett said the fresh concessions — set to compromise three more years of drafts — were “the clearest signal that the AFL made an incorrect decision” to establish a team on the Gold Coast.

“No-one at the AFL has accepted any responsibility for their failure in establishing an AFL club on the Gold Coast when they could have established it at Tasmania, in an area that genuinely loves football,” Kennett said.

“The AFL never admit publicly that they’ve made a mistake — never.

“It’s because they are answerable to no-one but themselves. It’s a commission against whom there is no appeal mechanism.

Noah Anderson could help Rowell change the Suns’ fortunes. Picture: AFL Photos/Getty Images

“Having said that we are the premier code in the country, but that doesn’t mean that they are perfect, no organisation is perfect.

“So when you make mistakes you ought to admit it and I’m not sure this is going to provide a long-term solution.”

AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan and league broadcasting boss Travis Auld played key roles in the creation of the Suns.

Auld was the club’s inaugural chief executive, while McLachlan and ex-AFL strategist Andrew Catterall were driving forces of expansion back in Melbourne.

Originally published as Gold Coast’s AFL rivals doubt draft concessions will help save battling club