There are no perfect answers, but instead a set of factors that demand more and more consideration with each passing year. Pushing the initial contract out by a year to three years is one option, but the AFL Players’ Association in agreeing to that could push for a quid pro quo, which for example would see the free agency window fast-tracked by a year. In the past, clubs have taken a multitude of players in the top bracket, but have been made to pay for it two years later when their initial contract is up for renewal.Īs the game has grown so too have the contractual expectations, with many first-round selections getting a salary of at least $400,000 in their new deals. “You might think it’s fine that you just pick this player and you get them into your environment and your system and it’s all fine, but if there’s apprehension about a player right from the word go about making the move interstate and they may go home, you just can’t take the risk unfortunately.

“When you’re an interstate club and the draft board is predominantly, at the top end, looks like it’s littered with Victorian talent, you’ve got some risk there,” McCartney said on Trade Radio this year. The end result is a draft in which the potential risks of an interstate recruit have to be considered more closely than they ever have been.įrustrations behind-closed-doors bubbled to the surface in a way rarely seen when Greater Western Sydney list team Jason McCartney and Adrian Caruso both stated that non-Victorian clubs had to take on extra risk given the glut of prospects that often hail from the state. Into the pot goes a marked shift towards players in the power dynamic with clubs, the isolation suffered during covid-19 and a top-end of the predicted draft order hailing from inner-city Victoria.

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