Past players - what are they up to?

[Bloods05]

How many games did John Blakey play for the Swans?

Blakey did qualify under F/S, but only to play for Brisbane or North. He declined both in favour of the Swans. A discerning young man.

[Maltopia]

Melbourne clubs love to bleat about COLA and the Academy but remain silent about the father-son rule. Clubs like Collingwood and Geelong have had numerous stars come through this route. I am not a fan of it. Its a total free kick to those Clubs. Next thing you know we will have a brother-brother rule or father-daughter rule. Interstate clubs just do not have the same opportunity to recruit father-son picks. We have had only one decent one in our history, Tom Mitchell, and he left after 3 or 4 seasons. Maybe Dempster at a stretch but that's about it. Rest were not up to it.

We could have had Dunkley too, but we didn’t force the issue. I recall some posts here at the time linking our soured relationship with his dad as a contributing factor to the player wanting to be in Melbourne.

Think he would have been decent for us.

[Mark26]

How many games did John Blakey play for the Swans?

Sorry. My bad!

[0918330512]

I see that Billy Picken has been recognised on the Swans app but Justin Crawford hasn’t yet

[liz]

Sorry. My bad!

I am pretty sure there was a time when coaching and even administrative service to a club counted towards father-son entitlements, but you probably have to go back 30 years or so. I vaguely recall a young indigenous draftee who had been fostered by an Essendon director for a couple of years before he reached draft age, and Essendon applied to have him eligible to be selected as a father-son. The AFL turned it down but on the basis of what constituted a "father son" (or parent son in this case, as I think the director was female) rather than because the
"parent" was an administrator rather than player.

Edit

I've found reference to this in Wikipedia (which may or may not be the gospel on everything true and right, but is likely reliable in this instance).

Former eligibility rules
Under previous rules, the sons of a senior administrator, such as a president, vice-president, general manager or senior coach, with a tenure of at least five years at a club, would be eligible to be drafted under the father–son rule by that club; and Brisbane Lions and Sydney were previously able to recruit players whose fathers had met eligibility criteria in the Queensland Australian Football League and the Sydney Football League respectively.[14] Neither of these rules is in place as of 2012.[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father%E2%80%93son_rule

[bloodspirit]

We could have had Dunkley too, but we didn’t force the issue. I recall some posts here at the time linking our soured relationship with his dad as a contributing factor to the player wanting to be in Melbourne.

Think he would have been decent for us.

We couldn't have forced the issue. Father-sons are only entitled to nominate at their option. Only once the draftee has indicated they want to be drafted by the relevant club does the club gain the right to match the bid.

In Dunkley's case I think he nominated but we didn't match the Bulldogs' bid.

[ugg]

The scuttlebutt around Dunkley was that we had come to an agreement with him that we would only match a bid if it came from a non-Victorian club. Like the Terry Wallace coaching rumours all those years ago the Swans have denied the rumours

The generous deal that got Dunkley to the Dogs

[Maltopia]

We couldn't have forced the issue. Father-sons are only entitled to nominate at their option. Only once the draftee has indicated they want to be drafted by the relevant club does the club gain the right to match the bid.

In Dunkley's case I think he nominated but we didn't match the Bulldogs' bid.

Re forcing the issue, I meant matching the Bulldog’s bid when Dunkley was making plenty of noise about wanting to be in Melbourne before the draft took place. I didn’t mean nominate him as a father son without him agreeing. I don’t know why he even nominated, maybe it was to ward off WA and QLD teams.

I am aware the player has to nominate, because I am pretty sure I remember North Melbourne wanted Blakey to nominate as a F/S so they could match if required, but he only nominated to be our academy pick, which aggravated a lot of their fans.

Be a similar issue for Chris Judd’s boys who will be able to choose Eagles or the Blues for F/S selection. Franklin’s daughter might also get to be picked as a father/daughter for either the Hawks or Swans.

[liz]

Franklin’s daughter might also get to be picked as a father/daughter for either the Hawks or Swans.

His son too (as father/son).

[Mark26]

I am pretty sure there was a time when coaching and even administrative service to a club counted towards father-son entitlements, but you probably have to go back 30 years or so. I vaguely recall a young indigenous draftee who had been fostered by an Essendon director for a couple of years before he reached draft age, and Essendon applied to have him eligible to be selected as a father-son. The AFL turned it down but on the basis of what constituted a "father son" (or parent son in this case, as I think the director was female) rather than because the
"parent" was an administrator rather than player.

Edit

I've found reference to this in Wikipedia (which may or may not be the gospel on everything true and right, but is likely reliable in this instance).



Father–son rule - Wikipedia

Thanks Liz. I just got so used to seeing Blakey Snr in a Swans' polo that somewhere the wires got crossed.

[Mark26]

The scuttlebutt around Dunkley was that we had come to an agreement with him that we would only match a bid if it came from a non-Victorian club. Like the Terry Wallace coaching rumours all those years ago the Swans have denied the rumours

The generous deal that got Dunkley to the Dogs

For what it's worth Dunkley was my favourite player when I started watching the Swans. I was pretty gutted we couldn't get Josh.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

I see that Billy Picken has been recognised on the Swans app but Justin Crawford hasn’t yet

Pure speculation, but sometimes a cause of death can cause a degree of hesitation.

We could have had Dunkley too, but we didn’t force the issue.

He at least nominated as a Swans F/S, Darcey and Joe Daniher, Ty Zantuck, David Round and Shane Morrison all declined too.

We have had only one decent one in our history, Tom Mitchell, and he left after 3 or 4 seasons. Maybe Dempster at a stretch but that's about it. Rest were not up to it.

Dempster was an All-Australian for goodness sake, I'd suggest it's a stretch labelling him anything but an outstanding father son (albeit one we stuffed up).
Interestingly he wouldn't have qualified under the current F/S rules.
I wouldn't label Gareth John, Heath James and Stephen Doyle as "not up to it" all had their careers destoyed by injury and/or incompetence.

[0918330512]

Melbourne clubs love to bleat about COLA and the Academy but remain silent about the father-son rule. Clubs like Collingwood and Geelong have had numerous stars come through this route. I am not a fan of it. Its a total free kick to those Clubs. Next thing you know we will have a brother-brother rule or father-daughter rule. Interstate clubs just do not have the same opportunity to recruit father-son picks. We have had only one decent one in our history, Tom Mitchell, and he left after 3 or 4 seasons. Maybe Dempster at a stretch but that's about it. Rest were not up to it.

The Swans have only had about 130 players who have played in excess 100 games. Most of those have either passed or are well beyond childbearing.

I have also been pro a brother-brother rule, as seeing the Morwoods, Danihers etc playing together has always had appeal (admittedly, that usually resulted from Zone recruiting). The second brother joining the first sibling would have to be contingent on the second sibling wanting to actually join his sibling (not all brothers would). Twins might cause an issue (eg the King twins).

[Ruck'n'Roll]

A grandfather/grandson pick would have yeileded Ben Graham and Callum Ward, in addition to Papley.

Speaking of the latter, I'd love it if the Swans media would get Tom to do a lap of the Lakeside oval eating an apple during training - recreate one of his paternal grandfathers more laconic moments.

[i'm-uninformed2]

I’ll guarantee there was no sympathy involved. The only reference in that AFL article that’s true is he was seen as surplus to requirements relative to the trouble involved.

At the time, we had Kennedy and Parker as inside bulls, we recruited Mills the same draft (even if he took a bit longer to play midfield due to circumstances than anticipated) and Heeney was expected to graduate in there (though injury niggles and his supreme skills forward hurt that).

Another inside mid with average kicking skills wasn’t seen as a priority, particularly given he was a 50-50 bet to go home in a year or two anyway.

You can argue about whether he’d be a valuable player now or our judgments were right in what he’d become (probably ‘slightly’ better than we predicted) but the sympathy angle is nonsense.