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Originally posted by Foreign Legion
Well, Bevan is probably one but McVeigh and Malceski are two that have stagnated due to the ACTAFL - McVeigh was no.5 pick for heavens sake! He has been unlucky - if we still had the Port link he'd be close to a ready made player now. Dempster luckily played in the TAC cup - the best junior standard but the guys from W.A. and S.A. havent played in that comp.
Look at Willoughby and Schmidt and to a lesser extent, Davis - they will struggle to adapt to AFL seniors. The difference is pressure and fitness cant really get around it.
Earl Shaw is a guy who would benefit greatly from playing in the VFL against good ruckmen - sadly he plays against fellas who are 2 inches shorter and nowhere near as fit.
Well, Bevan is probably one but McVeigh and Malceski are two that have stagnated due to the ACTAFL - McVeigh was no.5 pick for heavens sake! He has been unlucky - if we still had the Port link he'd be close to a ready made player now. Dempster luckily played in the TAC cup - the best junior standard but the guys from W.A. and S.A. havent played in that comp.
Look at Willoughby and Schmidt and to a lesser extent, Davis - they will struggle to adapt to AFL seniors. The difference is pressure and fitness cant really get around it.
Earl Shaw is a guy who would benefit greatly from playing in the VFL against good ruckmen - sadly he plays against fellas who are 2 inches shorter and nowhere near as fit.
We don't know whether McVeigh and Malceski have stagnated due to the level of competition they're playing in. They've had limited senior opportunities over the past couple of years - even when on the team, they've been on and off the bench. We can't possibly know where they'd be if they'd been playing VFL.
The fact that McVeigh was a no 5 pick is irrelevant, particularly when you look at many others in that draft. It hasn't produced very much so far. There have been plenty of other top 10 picks who've failed at AFL level.
If we had a cellar dwelling senior team and still had youngsters not coming through, fair enough. But we really don't know at the moment, and probably won't have a feel for a few years yet.
You dismiss the ACTAFL's role in Dempster's development, yet he came to the Swans as a raw and pretty inexperienced AFL player, only taking the game up in his mid-teens. He spent two full years in the reserves before graduating to the senior team. I don't think you can disregard how much developing he did in that.
Another thing to bear in mind is that the VFL system isn't perfect. Many new draftees at Victorian clubs find themselves running around in the VFL reserves competition due to the limit of 12 AFL players per VFL team, imposed either internally by some VFL clubs or by the VFL in the case of an affiliated team playing a non-affiliated team.
If the Swans were still with Port, half the guys we watched running around yesterday would have been playing in the SFL, probably running around on pint sized NSO, with a load of local top-ups.
Actually, many of them probably wouldn't even be on the Swans list - I suspect the decision in the last two seasons to take the full rookie quota has been partly driven by wanting to have close to a full reserves team so that they can all learn structures and team discipline better, without having to rely on ring-ins. A smaller rookie contingent would almost certainly have seen the likes of Jack and Phillips missing out on a chance.
I'm not trying to argue that the present set-up is perfect, but the alternatives aren't either. Unless the AFL decides to reinstate the reserves competition, I suspect the current situation is the best option the club has.
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