I grew up wanting to play for Carlton. Yes that's right, the Carlton Football Club.

From the day I was old enough to kick a football around, my dream was to follow in the footsteps of my father, John, and wear the number 18 jumper for Carlton, as he did on 29 occasions under Ron Barassi between 1965 and 1967.

I grew up watching my two older brothers, Simon and Brad, play for the Carlton under 19s, because of the 20-game father-son rule that was in place through the early nineties. I couldn't wait to do the same once I was old enough.

That all changed when the eligibility for a father-son selection rose from 20 games to 50. In a flash, my Carlton hopes were dashed, and my goal became to wear the number 18 jumper for any club in Melbourne, not just the "Old Dark Navy Blue".

In time, the father-son qualification jumped from 50 to 100 games, and now to a bidding system. In the case of Joe Daniher, for example, Essendon had to give up its earliest draft pick at No. 10 after Daniher had been earlier nominated by another club.

I love the fact that the Daniher name remains at Essendon, Liberatore at the Western Bulldogs, Viney at Melbourne, Mitchell at Sydney and Moore at Collingwood. Yet rival clubs in the Daniher and Liberatore cases didn't believe it was fair to the rest of the competition.

The new points system for this year's academy players and father-son candidates will never let that happen again. Callum Mills, from the Sydney academy, is currently viewed as a top five selection later this year, just like Isaac Heeney was last year.  If Sydney make the grand final and another club bids a top-five pick for Mills, the Swans will likely have to use their first three picks in the draft to match the bid. The Swans would still have picks available after taking Mills, but they would be at the end of the draft.

This system makes it fairer for the younger clubs such as Fremantle, West Coast, Adelaide and Port Adelaide, who don't have academy set-ups or father-sons coming through. But the romance of what we love about an Ablett or a Watson emulating their fathers' paths may be lost as taking that player may now compromise the rest of his club's draft selections for that year, and the balance of their list.

To be fair to the AFL, it must be an extremely difficult task to try to please all 18 clubs, all at different stages of their development. I do find it perplexing though, that we may lose  this tradition, yet the AFL is not trying as hard to bring equality to the AFL fixture, which is a much bigger blight on our game.

Money makes the world go around, I know, but the sooner every club plays each other once before round 18, to get a true indication of form, the better our game will be.

When I retired, I disconnected myself from Essendon, the club that I had been attached to for 15 years, as that is what I desperately needed and wanted at the time. I now have a 2½-year-old son who has already discovered a love for playing football and tells anyone who wants to hear it that he barracks for Essendon.

Jacob will stand on Etihad stadium next Saturday night with other children who are potential father-sons as part of the James Hird academy, which is a big part of Essendon continuing to engage with former players and their children.

Joe Daniher and Jake Long, the sons of Essendon greats Anthony Daniher and Michael Long, were part of the program from the day it started. Now have both made their way onto the senior list, which is so important for the fans and also the fabric and tradition of a football club.

AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan has set about re-engaging with the fans with pre-game entertainment, curtain-raisers, ticket prices and food prices. The passion supporters have for seeing father-sons come through should never be underestimated.

Cameron Mooney recently named a side, from the backline, of baby boys born to the premiership stars of the Geelong era from 2009 to 2013 who would all be coming through at the same time, just as Ablett, Hawkins and Scarlett did over a decade ago, helping Geelong to build a dynasty.

With the current system, Geelong would have to choose wisely, because if three of the 18 happened to be good enough - just as Ablett, Hawkins and Scarlett were - they wouldn't have the capacity to take them all in the same year as likely first-round selections. The price you pay now doesn't allow for more than one first-round father-son election in any given year.

I only hope that in 10 years, father-son selections aren't a thing of the past, as family tradition at clubland is so important, to not just the player's families themselves, but also the fans who are old enough to have seen different generations of a family play football, just as we have seen with Ken and Dustin Fletcher.

With every modification, we are making it harder and harder for the tradition to continue. I only hope that the next tweak doesn't bring  to an end one of football's grandest traditions.