AFL’s father-son rule needs to be open to all sons now that there is a bidding system in draft

AUSTRALIAN football’s father-son rule is approaching its 70th anniversary — and needs an overhaul if it is to remain relevant.

Port Adelaide SANFL premiership captain Darryl Borlase played more than 200 league games — but not enough before 1997 to have his son James qualify for the AFL father-son rule that needs to be reviewed.

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EVEN “romance” in football — as noted with the father-son rule — can lead to broken hearts.

There are sons who prefer not to follow their fathers’ footsteps to the same AFL club.

There are clubs that feel such pressure to draft a son — as Adelaide did with Ben Jarman — that their entire recruiting strategy can be compromised.

And there is the farcical nature of the current father-son rule that began in the VFL 1949 to overcome a son being tied — by residential recruiting zones — to a club other than that of his father. Ron Barassi avoided being a Collingwood player — and was assigned to Melbourne to follow his late father’s path in the VFL — as the second reassignment under the father-son rule.

Ben Jarman, Adelaide’s first father-son, with father and Crows premiership hero Darren. Picture: Tom Huntley

Until 1987, with VFL expansion to Perth and Brisbane, the father-son rule was simple. The qualification rule was the same for all 12 VFL clubs, even though there was no guarantee there would be equal access to this part of football romance — as St Kilda knows too well with its players being fathers to daughters more often than sons.

Today, in an 18-team national league, there are differing qualification rules across the competition and total irrelevance of the father-son rule to the newest franchises at Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney.

And there is the dismay with Port Adelaide — the only non-Victorian AFL team to come from a suburban competition to the national league — being denied the son of an SANFL premiership captain, Darryl Borlase.

How silly is this father-son rule when the Power has more chance of claiming the son of a West Adelaide champion who played more than 200 SANFL league games before 1997 than the Borlase teenager in the 2020 AFL national draft?

There is no locker at Alberton where a son-of-a-gun from West Adelaide, North Adelaide, Woodville-West Torrens or Central District can place his boots saying his father was there before him.

But there is the No. 16 locker at Alberton for James Borlase. He cannot take a direct path to this locker because Darryl played 177 — rather than the qualifying 200 SANFL league games — before 1997.

There also are two lockers (Nos. 3 and 31) at the Adelaide Football Club where new Woodville-West Torrens league player James Rowe can throw his bag as his father, Stephen, did from 1991-1995 as an inaugural Crow.

But James Rowe does not qualify as a father-son pick because his father played “just” 29 AFL games rather than a minimum of 100.

James Rowe in action for Woodville-West Torrens. Picture: Dylan Coker

In 2007, the AFL changed the father-son rule to introduce a bidding system that stopped a son automatically going to his father’s club in exchange for a third-round draft pick. Rival AFL clubs could bid to put a “true market value” on the draft pick conceded for the son.

At that time, the AFL also should have removed the differing qualification rules of 100 VFL games for the old VFL clubs, 150 WAFL games for West Coast and Fremantle and 200 SANFL games for Adelaide and Port Adelaide.

If there is to be true romance in football, every son should have access to his father’s locker in the AFL ... regardless how many games are on his father’s resume.

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Originally published as AFL’s father-son rule needs to be open to all sons now that there is a bidding system in draft