kickinit wrote:Port Adelaide MAGPIES reserve will have the best 18 years old's that didn't get drafted to the AFL. Do you really think that a 18 year old that still wants to have a crack at AFL will want to play for norwood over Port. Having access to everything at a AFL club versus only having access to everything at a SANFL club.
Sorry, how will they have access to "everything at a AFL club" if they're playing for the "Port Adelaide MAGPIES reserve[s]"?
Anyway, let's go through it all very slowly now:
1. The 18yo kid who's played Norwood from U/16s and played U/18s last year, is good. Missed getting drafted, and maybe not SANFL league good yet, but certainly reserves good, and could be good enough to push for league selection depending on performances in the 2nds.
2. Norwood obviously don't want to let him go.
3. So the only way he ends up at the Magpies is if he walks, and if Port Adelaide (on the current system) pay a transfer fee.
4. So, will he walk?
5. On the plus side, he gets a lot of talk about playing at an AFL club, having access to an AFL club's facilities, joining an 'academy' and playing for an 'academy team' ('cos that sounds so much more prestigious than joining a reserves squad and playing reserves), and living the dream of having a crack at AFL.
6. On the minus side:
• He will be training and playing with the 3rd tier group at the PAFC, and that fact will effectively be locked in for the whole year; he will be with the 2nd tier group at Norwood, and can instantly be promoted to the top tier if performances warrant it
• He is (barring an improbable run of injuries to the AFL list and the SANFL top-up list) guaranteed
not to get a SANFL league game at PAFC. There are about 37 players guaranteed a SANFL league game before him (44 on AFL list + 15 league top-up - 22 AFL players picked each week). That's a massive whack of injuries required before he's even a theoretical chance; whereas Norwood can pick him for his SANFL league debut the minute he earns his spot
• Playing SANFL reserves won't get him on an AFL list. For someone who's already been passed over once, playing well at SANFL reserves level isn't going to impress AFL talent scouts. Every mature-aged draftee from SA I can think of, got the nod by playing stand-out footy at SANFL
league level
• He is (if PAFC follow the rules) prohibited from being paid more than $100 per game by the PAFC because he's stuck in the SANFL reserves all year, whereas at Norwood if he earns a league debut, then within the SANFL salary cap Norwood can pay him whatever they like
• He has to leave behind his mates and club he's grown up with, which is a greater-than-usual pull if your home club is successful and the club you're thinking of transferring to, isn't
• The talk of 'if you wanna live the dream of playing AFL, your chances are better if you come to an AFL club' is an obvious crock. If they're interested in persuading him to stay, Norwood can point out to him: "Look at the number of players drafted and rookied from Norwood over the last 5 years, as compared with those wearing a prison bar guernsey."
There may well be the odd decent 18yo who requests to transfer over to Port Adelaide for a range of reasons, including that they buy the hype—in addition to the ex-U/18 castoffs who will make up the bulk of the 'academy'. People do irrational things all of the time, young people even more so.
But good luck with the claim that "the best 18 year olds that didn't get drafted to the AFL" will be lining up
en masse to leave behind their SANFL club and train with the 3rd tier group at a bones-of-its-arse AFL club, in order to grasp the prize of
not playing SANFL league footy and therefore
not attracting the interest of AFL talent scouts.
