COMMENT

Eddie McGuire is not the only person to have begun grumbling about how blessed Sydney is to have Isaac Heeney on the way as a first-round draft pick.

Imagine finishing on top of the ladder, winning the premiership and getting the first, second or third best kid in the draft for pick 18, and you’ll understand why the other clubs are so angst-ridden, particularly when Callum Mills, on his way next year, could be even better.

But it takes just a quick glimpse at recent draft numbers to know something needed to be done in the northern states, urgently.

The bigger picture shows that in the past 17 years just 10 players from NSW have been drafted, most by Greater Western Sydney as list-build bonuses. Only six clubs have picked them. Last year just one – Giants Academy player Jake Barrett – had his named called in the national draft. Queensland has done better, but even its numbers have drooped in the past few years.

Players from those states make it onto AFL lists and some have forged long careers, but they get there later and in fewer numbers than most other states. We need more of them to get through as teenagers if we’re going to have a large enough talent pool to supply 18 teams with players, which is why it’s too soon for clubs to feel spooked about the academies that give Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast and the Giants first call on the kids in their zone, that they have identified and developed.

Not much has worked in NSW so far, with just a few players signed up under the old scholarship scheme making it. One (Taylor Walker) lived in Broken Hill, hardly an Australian Rules outpost. Anyone could have chosen Sydney’s Craig Bird in the national draft. Will Langford could have been recruited under the father-son rule had he not grown up in Sydney while Jarrod Witts plays in the ruck for Collingwood, one of the few clubs that spent money and effort up there.

Heeney is an excellent prospect, but grew up in Newcastle. He needed someone to find him, and it’s impossible to say whether he’d be as tough-to-fault had he not been shown such a clear way to the AFL.

He’s had good coaching,  and he has been exposed (to all teams) by playing in the TAC Cup and a few NEAFL games.  And taking him out of the first round means the Swans will leave another good player there for someone else.

That’s the second point. Sydney will likely nominate two players this year, Heeney and Abe Davis, but no one batted an eyelid last year when the Lions matched Adelaide’s bid and took Jono Freeman in the third round. Brisbane has three or four players to consider this year and won’t be able to take all of them, meaning a couple will spill into the general pool. The Giants have a couple of very promising players, but if they take just three selections and try to squeeze them inside the first 25 picks, those players will become available to all of the other clubs. Getting an extra seven, eight or more players into the pool is a good thing for all clubs.

If the AFL wants to make the bidding system fairer, it could make it harder for clubs to grab two, genuine first-round talents with their first and second round choices. Say Mills continues as he has been going, father-son prospect Josh Dunkley keeps improving and clubs bid first round picks for both of them at the end of 2015. Could Sydney be forced to choose one, rather than landing the second with a pick in the 30s? The same would apply to any club lucky enough to have two outstanding father-sons in the same year.

The academies are new, but look like working. They’re forcing clubs to look more deeply into those markets,  to know what they’re bidding for. Ideally, this means they’ll spot players they might otherwise have not paid enough attention to.

If in a couple of years any of the four clubs are getting too huge a leg-up, then the system should be reviewed. For now, the focus should be on creating a bigger, more talented pool for every team to pick from. Sydney chairman Andrew Pridham put it best when responding to McGuire’s concerns a couple of weeks back: “If the AFL competition becomes flooded with talent from New South Wales and Queensland, it will be the best problem we have ever had.”