What I’m thinking with Ashley Browne
Eddie’s big picture worth framing He might be keeping a lower profile these days, but Eddie McGuire has canvassed an idea to give players one last shot at making an AFL list.
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s far as becoming the next chief executive of the AFL, as much the suspicion is that he’d dearly love to do it, Eddie McGuire will not make it to the starting gate as the search begins for Gillon McLachlan’s replacement. Nor will he be considered for one of two vacancies for the AFL Commission. It needs more diversity; non-Victorians and former players must be at the front of the queue there. McGuire is paying a price for some of the cultural failings of the Collingwood Football Club during his 22-year stint as president, but every cloud has a silver lining and he might yet have found his appropriate place in the game post the Magpies and as he scales back most of his media commitments. Perhaps because he has a bit more time on his plate and views the game through less of a black and white lens, he has become footy’s great ideas man. A one-man incubator. And a recxent thought bubble is a beauty. Speaking on Channel Nine’s Footy Classified (his last remaining regular footy media gig), McGuire floated the idea of a two-month men’s football competition, staged through
94 AFL RECORD
LATE-BLOOMERS: Bomber Nic Martin and Hawk Jai Newcombe are mature-aged recruits who are making their mark after being given belated chances in the AFL.
October and November, designed to give mature-aged players one last chance to impress AFL recruiters ahead of the national, rookie and pre-season drafts. “What we need to do is have the talent pool bigger, I think it’s narrowed in. If you’re not in a development squad in the under-16s, you get left behind,” he said. “There are players around the place and I just think if you had that building up to the National Draft at the end of the season, it broadens the pool.” There will always be mature-aged players whose dominance at state league level bring them to the attention of AFL talent scouts. Marlion Pickett, a Richmond premiership player in his first AFL game in 2019, is one example, while St Kilda’s Jack Hayes is a more recent case. But it is the nominations through the opening month for this year’s NAB AFL Rising Star award that illustrate why McGuire’s idea has merit. A disappointing under-18s campaign for Western Australia in 2019 resulted in clubs losing interest in Nic Martin and he had to bide his time for two years in the WAFL and an unsuccessful summer trial with West Coast. Essendon grabbed him, picked him for the opening game and he kicked five goals, which earned him the round one nomination. On Easter Monday, Hawthorn’s Jai Newcombe was the best player on the ground in the Hawks’ epic win over Geelong. The pandemic cruelled his 2020 season when he was supposed to be an over-age player for the Gippsland Power, while this time last year he was a fringe Box Hill midfielder and apprentice carpenter.
Last week, he earned the round five nomination. Chances are there are plenty more like Martin and Newcombe, who just need that one last opportunity to show their wares. It must be said that McGuire’s idea is not entirely original, but instead an adaptation of what has become common in American sport. The NBA Summer League showcases not just the players just drafted, but those who just missed out. The games attract strong TV ratings and sold-out crowds in places such as Las Vegas. There have been several iterations of springtime professional American football and they haven’t always been financially viable, but as a showcase for previously undrafted or fringe players, they have worked and several players have made it back to the NFL. And baseball even has its own AFL – the Arizona Fall League – which gives minor league players another opportunity to impress the scouts and to fast-track their development. With the strong likelihood that a 19th team will be admitted to ‘our’ AFL within the next five years – talk of a 20th has already started – it is going to take more than just the traditional talent pathways and existing player movements mechanisms such as the trade period to find the extra 40-80 quality players needed to enter the system. The idea for a showcase league was always out there, and credit to McGuire for enunciating it. Move over Kevin Sheedy. Eddie McGuire has replaced you as footy’s great big picture person. We cannot wait to see what he comes up with next.
@hashbrowne
aflrecord.com.au
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