AFL rejects priority for Suns, Blues
AFL: League chief executive Gillon McLachlan has announced cellar-dwellers Carlton and Gold Coast will not be handed priority draft picks.
The AFL Commission met in Melbourne on Monday and instead settled on an assistance package to give the Blues and the Suns first crack at the best players available in state leagues across the country.
Carlton and Gold Coast, 18th and 17th respectively this season, will be allowed to recruit at least one player outside the draft system under the plan.
They could do so with the intention of boosting their playing stocks or on-trading those players to gain extra draft picks or players from rival clubs.
“If you help (with draft picks) then you’re doing that at the expense of the competition generally,” McLachlan said yesterday.
“There was an assessment that the clubs had a lot of young talent. I think Carlton have got 18 first-round picks and they’ll get the No.1 pick again this year.
“Gold Coast have got 15 firstround picks on their list and they’re going to get picks two and 15 this year if Tom Lynch goes to another club, which is I think accepted, so they’ll get pick three as well.
“So there was a view that they needed some mature bodies.”
Tim Kelly’s success at Geelong in his first AFL season has put the spotlight back on recruiting mature-aged talent.
The midfielder, 24, played 23 games for the Cats in 2018 after he was picked out of the WAFL.