Due to his wife, A very loyal Gold Coast Suns player has announced his sudden retirement, sending a powerful statement and bidding the team and supporters
Although the AFL will never satisfy everyone, the mounting discontent with the national draft bidding process is getting close to breaking point.
Gold Coast advanced the process last Monday night by selecting four Academy players in the first round: Will Graham (26), Jake Rogers (14) and Jed Walter (choice 3).
Damien Hardwick objected to our suggestion that it cost the Suns “very little,” so maybe we exaggerated. In any case, further criticism is being leveled at the method that allowed them to convert what were originally two first-round picks (they had 4 and 22 naturally) into four.
According to The Herald Sun, Victorian clubs deliberated not to bid on any of the Suns’ players in protest of the regulations governing northern academies. These regulations are in contrast to those governing the Next Generation Academy, which prohibit teams from matching offers on tied prospects within the top 40.
Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sydney, and GWS, on the other hand, are allowed to match bids on academy players at any stage of the draft, with the only cap being placed on their on-field performance. A team is allowed to match one first-round bid if they make it to the preliminary round, two if they make it to the finals but lose in the first two weeks, and an infinite number if they do not make it that far. The regulation was implemented when the Giants were vying for a championship in
