AFL Sydney top-ups for Swans NEAFL - should there be compensation?

[MrTaxman]

It is disappointing that the Sydney Swans go with a list of just 38 yet again and take advantage of local AFL Sydney top-ups playing for free each week for their NEAFL side to help fund Buddy's & Kurt's salaries. These top-ups would otherwise get cash in the Sydney or NEAFL comps each week, they miss out on a lot of Friday or Saturday work to travel interstate with the NEAFL side and obviously has an impact on their own club teams' make-ups on a week to week basis. I think we would all give our left nut to play for the Swans for free but I think they are simply taking the mickey just to fit Buddy & co in. I am fearful that our clubs will adopt a similar model and before we know it, lists will be down to 25 & make a mockery of the AFL minimum wage agreements.

Whilst the Swans have been great in recruiting local Sydney players (Jack x 2, McVeigh, Rampe etc), they should be giving a donation to AFL Sydney each year for the equivalent of the minimum AFL contracts for these top-ups that can go towards helping local clubs. This is a policy that head office should be clashing heads with the Swans administration.

More than happy to be corrected if there are payments going on.

[ugg]

The Swans reserves have player restrictions anyway (unless we play another AFL reserves side) so drafting more players wouldn't help. The current restriction is 18 listed players in the squad and 14 on the field at the one time. I don't think that there have been many exclusively Sydney AFL players used as topups in recent years, most of them are Swans Academy players too.

[MrTaxman]

The current restriction is 18 listed players in the squad and 14 on the field at the one time.

So there are 23 players (including emergency) with the senior list playing on same weekend which takes the list to 41 and that assumes nobody injured?

[ugg]

Can't quite get what you're trying to point out.

Our 2014 list will be 45 when Perris and Patrick Mitchell get officially drafted in the rookie draft. If the ressies as playing as the curtain raiser to the seniors, all 3 emergencies usually play with one going off at half time. If they're playing at a different venue then at least 1 and sometimes more emergencies sit out the reserves match.

[ugg]

It's also a good opportunity for Sydney AFL guys to see whether they can cut it at the next level. Dane Rampe is the only success story so far but other guys like Lewis Broome and Matthew Carey have been looked at when playing as topups too.

[Mug Punter]

It is disappointing that the Sydney Swans go with a list of just 38 yet again and take advantage of local AFL Sydney top-ups playing for free each week for their NEAFL side to help fund Buddy's & Kurt's salaries. These top-ups would otherwise get cash in the Sydney or NEAFL comps each week, they miss out on a lot of Friday or Saturday work to travel interstate with the NEAFL side and obviously has an impact on their own club teams' make-ups on a week to week basis. I think we would all give our left nut to play for the Swans for free but I think they are simply taking the mickey just to fit Buddy & co in. I am fearful that our clubs will adopt a similar model and before we know it, lists will be down to 25 & make a mockery of the AFL minimum wage agreements.

Whilst the Swans have been great in recruiting local Sydney players (Jack x 2, McVeigh, Rampe etc), they should be giving a donation to AFL Sydney each year for the equivalent of the minimum AFL contracts for these top-ups that can go towards helping local clubs. This is a policy that head office should be clashing heads with the Swans administration.

More than happy to be corrected if there are payments going on.

Is this post a wind up?

Not quite sure why you are bashing the Swans here alone, surely GWS should also be included. The Buddy allusion is also silly, he is in their salary cap, surely you aren't saying that some of the Swans salary cap should go to the fringe players that allow them to put a ressies team on the park. If that was the case then any affiliated Melbourne AFL clubs should also have their ressies players included in their cap whether they are on their AFL list or not.

The logical structure would be to have only two sides (Swans and GWS) playing in a stronger NEAFL or SANFL (as I keep banging on about) with compensation to all the SFL clubs for topups. A kind of reward for development.

If there was to be some form of compensation, which I do not think is a bad idea per se, it should come from the AFL who have thought up this hare-brained comp not the Swans. Of course the AFL do not care about the SFL so why should the Swans have to fund that too?

The Swans do plenty in terms of development in terns their Academy etc out of their own pocket I believe.

[unconfuseme]

Obviously when tax time is over, boredom sets in ...

Swans rotate their u/17 + academy players through as top ups + a few others that they identify along the way ... never got the call up MrTaxman? ... maybe they just couldn't afford you!??

Also, I'm sure ugg could give you some stats on how many "local" players the Swans have drafted over recent years, compared to say GWS ... he could start with Harry Cunningham who was an inaugural GWS Academy member, but overlooked by them for a rookie listing ... OOPS!

Swans have actually pushed for two academy style teams, Giants and Swans aligned, but for primarily u/23's and feeding from their SAFL clubs.

Would effectively add two senior Sydney Representative teams to the comp, strengthening it and creating a genuine alternate pathway for the players that slip through the under age systems for what ever reason. Not aligned to any SAFL club, but to ALL SAFL clubs in their zone. Might even generate some interest from the grass roots clubs!

Makes perfect sense, the SAFL should have been left alone, and this should have been the model from day one, with the two AFL clubs and the AFL funding them.

Not too late to do it and replace the 2 current licences that have done little for development and even less for egos I would suspect.

No one but the most patriotic Hills Eagles and SU fans gives a toss about their NEAFL teams as it is, and this latest proposal for them to try and cherry pick players under the pretense that they are "helping them develop" won't fly, it's already creating more of a rift.

Aside from the fact that it has proven to be a dead end rather than a pathway to the AFL , the reason that the best players in Sydney do not play NEAFL, is due to their loyalty to their clubs.

[Mug Punter]

Obviously when tax time is over, boredom sets in ...

Swans rotate their u/17 + academy players through as top ups + a few others that they identify along the way ... never got the call up MrTaxman? ... maybe they just couldn't afford you!??

Also, I'm sure ugg could give you some stats on how many "local" players the Swans have drafted over recent years, compared to say GWS ... he could start with Harry Cunningham who was an inaugural GWS Academy member, but overlooked by them for a rookie listing ... OOPS!

Swans have actually pushed for two academy style teams, Giants and Swans aligned, but for primarily u/23's and feeding from their SAFL clubs.

Would effectively add two senior Sydney Representative teams to the comp, strengthening it and creating a genuine alternate pathway for the players that slip through the under age systems for what ever reason. Not aligned to any SAFL club, but to ALL SAFL clubs in their zone. Might even generate some interest from the grass roots clubs!

Makes perfect sense, the SAFL should have been left alone, and this should have been the model from day one, with the two AFL clubs and the AFL funding them.

Not too late to do it and replace the 2 current licences that have done little for development and even less for egos I would suspect.

No one but the most patriotic Hills Eagles and SU fans gives a toss about their NEAFL teams as it is, and this latest proposal for them to try and cherry pick players under the pretense that they are "helping them develop" won't fly, it's already creating more of a rift.

Aside from the fact that it has proven to be a dead end rather than a pathway to the AFL , the reason that the best players in Sydney do not play NEAFL, is due to their loyalty to their clubs.

Brilliant post, absolutely spot on

[Benchwarmer]

Swans have actually pushed for two academy style teams, Giants and Swans aligned, but for primarily u/23's and feeding from their SAFL clubs.

Would effectively add two senior Sydney Representative teams to the comp, strengthening it and creating a genuine alternate pathway for the players that slip through the under age systems for what ever reason. Not aligned to any SAFL club, but to ALL SAFL clubs in their zone. Might even generate some interest from the grass roots clubs!

Makes perfect sense, the SAFL should have been left alone, and this should have been the model from day one, with the two AFL clubs and the AFL funding them.

Not too late to do it and replace the 2 current licences that have done little for development and even less for egos I would suspect.

No one but the most patriotic Hills Eagles and SU fans gives a toss about their NEAFL teams as it is, and this latest proposal for them to try and cherry pick players under the pretense that they are "helping them develop" won't fly, it's already creating more of a rift.

Aside from the fact that it has proven to be a dead end rather than a pathway to the AFL , the reason that the best players in Sydney do not play NEAFL, is due to their loyalty to their clubs.[/QUOTE]

Sounds like a great solution to me.

I nominate unconfuseme for a seat on the "Sydney AFL strategic committee"

[DamY]

Hard to read a post that doesn't present itself with any attempted impartiality, it reads like a Daily Terrorgraph or ACA article.

The Swans had the same 38 player roster pre and post Tippett and Tippett/Franklin so dont know how it affects anything

[unconfuseme]

Swans have actually pushed for two academy style teams, Giants and Swans aligned, but for primarily u/23's and feeding from their SAFL clubs.

Would effectively add two senior Sydney Representative teams to the comp, strengthening it and creating a genuine alternate pathway for the players that slip through the under age systems for what ever reason. Not aligned to any SAFL club, but to ALL SAFL clubs in their zone. Might even generate some interest from the grass roots clubs!

Makes perfect sense, the SAFL should have been left alone, and this should have been the model from day one, with the two AFL clubs and the AFL funding them.

Not too late to do it and replace the 2 current licences that have done little for development and even less for egos I would suspect.

No one but the most patriotic Hills Eagles and SU fans gives a toss about their NEAFL teams as it is, and this latest proposal for them to try and cherry pick players under the pretense that they are "helping them develop" won't fly, it's already creating more of a rift.

Aside from the fact that it has proven to be a dead end rather than a pathway to the AFL , the reason that the best players in Sydney do not play NEAFL, is due to their loyalty to their clubs.

Sounds like a great solution to me.

I nominate unconfuseme for a seat on the "Sydney AFL strategic committee"[/QUOTE]

Ha Ha Ha ... can just imagine that going well Benchwarmer!

... turn up with no personal agenda, put forward a bunch of common sense, researched proposals that the stake holders really want, and then try to convince a bunch of wannabe ex-pat AFL sycophants ... had a better chance of winning Lotto the other night, and forgot to buy a ticket!