Why to raise the draft age

We had a short introductory discussion on this topic – looking at what other sports do as a guide for what we could do better in this regard. But now lets look a little more closely at the advantages of this approach. We will also look at the disadvantages or rebuttals that will often be raised. Once again, we only have this discussion given how closely it links in with our discussions on long term athletic development/junior development, but then happens to be a quite broad and all-encompassing topic.

For there to be a change, the more advantages there are the better, but even more so, the more different stakeholders that are advantaged the better. If only 1 stakeholder is advantaged, then it is much harder to justify a change than if the advantages reach wider. In our case in this discussion, we will see that raising the draft age (by 2 or 3 years) is advantageous for;

1.The players themselves

2.Clubs (AFL)

3.Supporters

4.The 2^nd tier leagues (the forgotten SANFL, WAFL, VFL etc.)

5.The game as a whole

The Players

We all know about how low the average lifespan of a professional career is. For every 200 game legend, there are 3 or 4 20 year olds being delisted and heading back to obscurity. We covered in an earlier discussion about the wastage that comes with drafting guys as high school graduates in comparison to guys a few years older – given you can have a better idea what someone will be – or could be – at 21. The professional sports in USA woke up to this a long time ago. We discussed this in more detail last time – highlighting that at 20 or 21, you have a far greater idea of what a player is – or the ceiling of what they could become – than you do when someone is 17 or 18. This is important for the players themselves, because how many talented (often mistakenly called ‘elite’ – but no 18 year old is truly ‘elite’) young players come into the system for 2-3 years, and are delisted (for any number of reasons – injury, luck, timing, underperformance, etc) and then disappear to a country league or lower grade. When really they should still be on a state-league list having been developing themselves as 18-20 year olds, and at that age potentially just pushing to the big league, at an age where everyone will have a better idea of whether they will be or could be good enough yet. This level of wastage is ridiculously high – and it is wastage for virtually everyone – the AFL clubs, the players themselves, and the local/state level clubs that nurtured and developed them with the limited finances and facilities available to them.

But in discussing the benefits to the players, it is even more so from a physical point of view – their development and their longevity. When draftees first come into AFL clubs, they are on abbreviated programs – as are all players to an extent – everything being adjusted and tailored to the individual based on their own needs and load managements. But far from the old days where everyone did the same thing, young players are eased in and managed over their early period at the club, and progressed accordingly.

“For the first 3 months I will be very conservative with the younger players, without putting an actual percentage on how much of the program we will put them through.”

“Some of them are built like men at 18 and some aren’t. Some of the more mature bodied players will do more, although in saying that it is still capped at less than the senior players.”

Peter Burge
Richmond High Performance Manager
Skills of Australian Football

The high performance departments at AFL are world class. The issue isn’t around the way they are managed once at the highest level, but rather the gap they have to breach once they get there (from where they are currently), combined with the relatively short period of time they have to do it – with the pressure of contract renewal. It is one thing for high performance departments to adjust training loads and develop players foundations as steadily as they can in training. But matches take a far bigger toll than any training ever will. And there is still the underlying pressure to play and perform to a certain level, given you could be gone next year if you don’t win a contract renewal.

“We find we spend a lot of time going back to the real basics in the first 3-6 months because a lot of the kids don’t really know anything about it.”

“I would say that from a conditioning perspective they play a lot of games of football at a young age, and they are not physically prepared for those games.”

Peter Burge
Richmond High Performance Manager
Skills of Australian Football

The general theme that comes through from the professional clubs – and not only in footy but other sports too particularly the football codes – is that when clubs get their hands on these young players, they may be talented junior footballers, but very few of them are athletes. In fact, very few of them are properly physically literate. The problem is, these are the players that most clubs are bringing in, and it is a case of ‘well this is what we have, so we better find a way to get them out there and playing.’

“Physically it is a massive ask for TAC kids and I see many in my business that are so fit aerobically and can run a bit (poor form usually) but are years behind in their overall development. Often lacking is core development, strength and conditioning, pure power and speed, ability to repeat speed and simply not having finalized maturation!”

Loris Bertolacci
Former Essendon & Geelong
Head Fitness Coach

“From my perspective, the TAC Cup competition, considered the best junior pathway in Australia, relies simply on natural talent rising to the top. It is purely a talent league, not a development league, so there are too many good kids who fall through the cracks.”

“My other concern is the draft age of 18 is too young. Not only are too many young players failing to make an impact when they do get drafted, too many others are passed over because they are late developers.”

Paul Roos

This is a topic that we cover in much more detail elsewhere – the details and specifics of the physical development.

Clubs

The benefit to the clubs is several-fold. The increase in draft age will reduce the number of ‘poor’ decisions and the high level of lower-order draft failures. Drafting will never be an exact science, and so much of a young players success on a list can still come down to luck and timing, as well as of course the development program at that club. But the level of wastage if the guys coming in were 20 or 21 instead of 18 would certainly be reduced given we can see more of what a player can be at that slightly older age. Once again, the Americans have woken up to it – one day we might too. And additionally, with 2 or 3 years of further physical development – rather than the pressure to play, the injury-induced turnover would also surely reduce – if not plummet.

But the benefits to the clubs doesn’t end there.

So your team very ordinary – you are dead last. And you have picks 1, 7 and 19 in the draft. You will get the best young player in the country and 2 more first rounders. The problem is, these guys coming in are all 18. Even if they are playing games that first year or 2 (which of course is largely assisted by the fact that you suck in the first place – and if they were at a good club only the number 1 pick would have any chance of even playing) are they going to take you from bottom to a finals contender?

Recent evidence will answer that question.

Whilst high picks are every chance to one day develop into stars – it takes time – even for the very best of them. As an ‘evener up policy’ the draft may work on a longer term measure (‘eventually good teams will be punished and crap ones will come good) but in terms of the shorter term measure – like season to season – it is completely ineffective in bringing in any change. Even if a team is bringing in several of the country’s best juniors, it takes several years for the benefit to even start to rise to the surface – and that is if those draftees turn out the way you want, and of course assuming they haven’t yet requested a trade home yet.

Contrast this to bringing guys in those few years older. Chris Judd won a Brownlow Medal at 21. So did Michael Voss. Yes ok, they wouldn’t have won them had they not been on a list for the previous few years, however the point is that at 20 or 21 a player can be expected to be so much more – both in their football ability but certainly in their physical capacities – at 21. A club bringing in 2 or 3 of the country’s best 20-21 year olds can expect these guys to step straight in and actually make some sort of difference to the performance of a side. Certainly more than an 18 year old irrespective of how good they are could be expected to make.

“Young players need 3 years plus to have a ‘winning” impact on AFL teams.”

“So when clubs self destruct and keep throwing players out and going young they simply will have to wait 5 years as a minimum.”

Loris Bertolacci
Former Essendon & Geelong
Head Fitness Coach

Imagine it – if players had to be those couple years older – and were 2-3 years further developed (physically, mentally, experience against men) at their clubs by the time they came in. You bring in a 20 year old dual-premiership player who has played full back for Williamstown in the VFL the last 2 seasons and is regarded as the best junior key defender in the country – and he has 3 years of VFL experience (including premiership experience playing against men) rather than TAC against other kids. You also bring in 2 midfielders from Western Australia who have been playing league for 3 and 4 years respectively, a 20 and 21 year old, one of which finished 2^nd in the Sandover medal this year having come 3^rd the year before, and the other whom made the WAFL team of the year on the half back flank 2 years in a row. Pretty good pick ups, but frustratingly you missed out on the 21 year old Magarey Medalist from Norwood in the SANFL who was 2 months too young to get drafted last year – but will push All Australian selection in his first year in the big league.

All of a sudden you are talking about a far greater instant impact in the draft for the clubs doing the drafting. ‘Young’ now means 20 or 21 – and clubs can draft ‘young’ guys for now – rather than for 5 years time.

Supporters

Supporters – the other of the 2 keys stakeholders in the game along with the players. Without the players there is no show, but without supporters, no one cares, and there is no money to pay anyone and keep the football world turning at the highest level. Most supporters are supporters of clubs, rather than the game at large. And the last point about the positives for individual clubs also can be related closely to this point on supporters too.

That is, the draft contributing more to quicker rises above the ladder would no doubt be greeted by supporters of all clubs, and certainly the struggling ones.

Because lets be honest – where are Carlton and Gold Coast going to finish next year? Even with the pick of the best draftees in the country. No 18 year old can be expected to come straight in, and make a genuine difference to a teams immediate fortunes.

Supporters have to put up with the same tripe every November: ‘Fremantle’s 2^nd pick this year is John Smith, who is a 190cm running half back with a great left foot and good hands. A real good future prospect.’ Last year he was playing for Assumption College and the Murray Bushrangers against players his own age, and he is still only 18 now. He is going to have no genuine impact at AFL level for at least the next few years, will be lucky to play any games at all before the age of 20, and by the time he is 24 and potentially having an impact at that level, he will be at his 2^nd club because he requested a trade home to Victoria anyway. So how is a supporter expected to give a rats arse about any draftees when their name is called out??

The AFL look longingly at the American sport drafts – and are wanting to make the AFL draft more of an event – over 2 full days, including live trading of picks, with enormous interest and viewership and analysis from supporters. But in the USA, supporters know these guys who are being drafted. Many have been playing college for a few years, are older, and will come in and have a greater impact right from the get go. It is much easier to get interested and even excited about the draft when you actually know the players being drafted, because you have seen them play regularly for the last 2-3 seasons (at their state league clubs against adults, not underage national carnivals) and you can expect these mature developed men of 20-21 to step straight into your starting 22 and bring something. That is what America has to a far greater degree than we do. Right now, our draft is a total flop for supporters.

2^nd Tier leagues and clubs

This is the forgotten level of the football world. And it is probably – no scratch that, it IS – the toughest part of the football landscape for a club, as well as players, to operate in. Running around in the SANFL, VFL or WAFL requires you to be a very good player for starters, but then to commit to training 4 nights per week, living the habits of a full time professional, but doing it whilst having a regular job as well as not having all the perks at your disposal of a pro (unlimited massage, chiro, physio, multiple strength and conditioning coaches, and of course free time to rest.) With all this effort and commitment, and playing a genuinely high standard of footy, you run out on the weekend, and play in front of a crowd of 2,000 people. Then to top it off, you earn comparatively nothing - $400,000 approximately, divided up amongst 45-50 blokes.

It’s tough enough on the players – the disparity between the standard of your output and the level of your financial compensation, but it is even harder on the clubs themselves, many of whom (certainly here in Adelaide) have their backs to the wall to even keep the doors open. These clubs must;

-Provide a semi-elite training environment

-Maintain a high standard of competition – which requires very good players and a high volume of training

-Develop the next batch of elite or semi elite players (through the junior programs)

-Maintain good facilities fit for commercial use/match days

-Maintain all the commercial operations that go into running a football club – and therefore employ full time staff (external to the football department itself)

Just to name a few. And they have to do all these things, on minimal earnings, effectively going head to head with the AFL itself (in terms of supporter interest.) It is an unenviable position for these clubs to be in. And without them the game collapses.

This topic – how much more needs to be done by the AFL for this level of football, and all associated with it – is a whole other discussion for another day, as it is possible to write a whole book on it. But this increased raft age would tie in with some considerable flow on benefits to this tier of football.

Right now, when these clubs develop junior stars that are deemed potentially good enough, for all the time and money put into these kids, they are gone at 17 or 18, having potentially played a handful of league games for that club. They aren’t at the club that raised them for long enough to have any genuine sort of impact for that club before they go. They are little more that a brief memory for supporters of those clubs, and the financial compensation for losing them is minimal to none. If these young 18 year olds were still at these 2^nd tier clubs for a few years longer, the potential benefits to these clubs become quite large.

Instead of being fringe league players who just do their bit and hold their spot as 18 year olds, these players would have time to develop into genuinely impactful players at 19-20-21 for their league sides. It isn’t unrealistic for a state league side to be lead to a premiership push on the back of having 3-4 20 and 21 year olds who have really come on in the previous 12 months. All of whom are expected to go in the November draft of course as they are all amongst the top 40 rated draft prospects in the country, but they were still at the clubs who raised them for long enough to deliver something tangible back to that club first.

Even just as 2 simple examples in Adelaide this year (2018) – there are 2 probable top 5 selections in this years AFL draft playing league football in the SANFL. They are both very talented teenagers who are solid league players. They will both be gone in November, and they will both almost certainly be 200+ game players at AFL level. Their local clubs here will never see them again – or maybe will again when they are 32 and retired from AFL. If they were both still here for 2-3 seasons longer, you could legitimately see one of them being a 2-time Ken Farmer medalist (competition leading goal-kicker) and the other being a Magarey Medalist (the SANFL’s Brownlow) in 2021 before leaving.

So these struggling clubs that build these guys for the big league would get more for their development in a football sense. That is one thing. But the highly underrated potential benefit for these clubs here is more so the general interest and coverage in this tier of football that a higher draft age would help to generate. If draftees weren’t coming into the AFL until they were 21, and supporters knew that when draftees come in they will be older, developed and much more likely to make an instant impact on teams fortunes, there will no doubt be a lot ore interest in this next wave of players. So what is the natural flow on from this?.....Supporters saying ‘lets keep an eye on the 2^nd tier competitions where these guys are playing.’ And its not a case of ‘this 18 year old might be ok in a few years’ or ‘this 17 year old is great but he has 4 or 5 years of development ahead of him and he might be an ok full forward’, but rather a case of ‘this 21 year old has already played 70 games of SANFL and isn’t just a solid player, but literally the best midfielder in Australia outside the AFL.’

Holding onto these guys for 2-3 years longer will contribute to raising the general standard of the competitions, as with these guys chasing the AFL dream still, there is no chance of them choosing to cash in on playing in country leagues for more money than state league level.

There is always debate over how the 2^nd tier leagues and clubs can position themselves in order to generate interest in them, as their crowd numbers, market share and TV coverage continues to dwindle. If they were the breeding ground where there are plenty of players who were that damn good and just waiting to become old enough before top flight clubs would just about beg them to play for them, the interest and coverage in these leagues would have flow on to the bottom line of this struggling tier – either in self-generated TV and sponsorship revenue, or potentially in the AFL waking up and providing more funding for the enormous amount of work that this tier does for them. It sure would require a hell of a lot less funding and less reconstruction than these ludicrous ideas of a national reserves completion, or even worse, a national under 20 youth league.

We wont spend too much time on this, as again, this is a detailed discussion for another day. But just as just one quick comparison – contrast our 2^nd tier to America’s 2^nd tier – the college system. The college system of course is entirely self funded due to being linked to cashed up learning institutions. Also it is often said ‘yeh but they don’t need to pay their players.’ True but they do need to pay their coaches and fitness staff and physios – all of whom are on full time salaries, and many of which are on obscene amounts of money – the type of money that would make an AFL coach or high performance staff members eyes water. Additionally, much of their money is self generating – from TV and sponsorship – from the enormous amount of interest that this level of the sport generates. Sure some of this is cultural in regards to the lifelong link that individuals have with their college. But much of it also comes from the drafting of this talent pool at those higher ages into professional competitions –where draftees aren’t ‘potential stars in a few years’ but stars from day 1.

Now lets be clear, I’m not saying that raising the draft age is going to mean that raising the draft age will mean that the WAFL and VFL will be as big as the American college sports system. Hell the AFL itself couldn’t even dream of being that big! But what I am saying is that raising the draft age will go a long way to making these forgotten yet still very good leagues relevant again.

The game as a whole

All these previous points sort of blend together to a point where you can say ‘the game as a whole’ benefits. The flow on effects are very large, despite the initial benefit seeming relatively small (the physical, mental and emotional well being of the young and developing players being the obvious initial starting points.) I believe we are only just scratching the surface here too.

So why not raise it? The argument against

The naysayers around raising the draft age normally have 2 arguments;

1. We will rob players of 2-3 years of their potential careers
2. If an 18 year old is good enough, why hold him back

Players coming into the system at 21 would only rob players of 2-3 potential years if we remain stuck living by this ‘once you are 30 you are on your last legs’ dogma. It is far more likely that length of careers will, at-worst be just as long, just retiring at older average ages. However it is also likely that with longer time for physical development due to higher draft ages, and reduced niggling complications that come from rushed development and need for performance, combined with less ‘drafting errors’ due to seeing guys at older ages before drafting them, that the average length of careers will only increase.

It just means that players will have to wait slightly longer before getting their shot. And hey, being held back for a few years will also mean that they may need to spend some time in the real world – either doing a trade, or a degree or getting a part time job, and develop a better rounded grounding, rather than being handed an $80,000 absolute minimum contract fresh out of high school. This will only add to their development as people. And this also applies to ‘if they are good enough at 18 why hold them back?’ There isn’t any real detriment done to these guys by holding them back a couple years – particularly when looking at the bigger picture – or the longer term view of their career. It is really only when looking a the short term that a potential draw back can be seen in raising the age. And we all know that short-sightedness can be very detrimental to longer term result.

Lets be honest – the biggest obstacle is simple the standard resistence to any sort of change. Its much easier to leave something they way it is than to put things in place to impact change. Change in mentality is incredibly hard, let alone change in action. Additionally there becomes a flow on effect to things like the TAC Under 18’s and the National under 18 carnivals. So yeh I’m not saying this is something to change overnight. There would need to be a lot of things put in place to change it – as with anything. But the potential benefits – and continuing flow on benefits – to the game and everyone associated with it – are too big to continue to ignore.

Strength Coach