The VFL Conundrum

[The tooth]

With Geelong and Collingwood going with their own VFL sides, this is something the club should be looking at closely.

The benefits of having total control of the reserves seems to be:
1. The ability to give all listed players and rookies to play together, and just one rung below the seniors.
2. Development (Collard and Gourdis seem to hae played most of their games in the Coburg 2's this year. Is this due to the cap on the number of listed players/rookies that can play in the Coburg seniors?)
3. Cohesive pursuit of a common goal (i.e. to play AFL finals)

Is success at Coburg is being driven by "good VFL players" from the Coburg list and is this of any real use to the RFC? Or are we seeing real improvement in RFC list depth?

Where does the rule capping the number of listed players that can play in the VFL affiliate come from? This arcane rule appears to stem from an ideology that such a rule helps to maintain the culture/history of the VFL clubs. If so, it's a flawed logic holding our club back. With no club under 19s now and the Reserves wound up, it seems to me the least we can expect is to be able to have all our list players and rookies having a kick TOGETHER each weekend if that's what the club wants to do.

This system of seems crazy to me. I like the VFL comp, but not at the expense of my AFL team. Am I alone here?

So should the club...
a) Do nothing. Persevere, the system works
b) Lobby for a rule change to allow all/more listed and rookie players to play at Coburg
c) Start an independent team like Geelong and Collingwood

 

[J_Rod]

It sis a good idea however, affiliating urself with another club makes the ocst of running roughly about $300,000 where as being on your own you would be looking at about $700,000.

 

[jb03]

The Coburg alliance is working well. You may not be alone but doubt you have many friends.

 

[Tiger74]

Coburg is one of the better alliances, with both sides gaining from it.

Its providing us with a competitive nursery for us to blood our kids in, and as such I'm reluctant to change.

 

[seven]

Cash is stopping RFC going it alone.

I remember when you could rock up to a game, have a few extra beers and watch the 2nd's beforehand... Ah, good times.

 

[Tony Braxton-Hicks]

Collard not named in the Coburg seniors this week after being in the best last week. Disappointing.

 

[feisty tige]

Not sure, if we had the money then sure, but also on the other hand with the Craigsburg move then perhaps we might try to align with another team?

 

[IanG]

Disadvantages of going it alone:
1. We can't afford it. I'd far rather resources were put elsewhere in the football related areas.
2. The alliance with Coburg works extremely well.

 

[Mr Pumblechook]

There has been a recent thread on this:

http://www.puntroadend.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=32006.0

I think the general conclusion was that we are better off sticking with Coburg.

 

[Knighter]

Yep, at this stage the burgs is the way to go.

 

[tigertim]

Further to this point I still think 42 on the list is too many. We could cull a dozen players off our list and still perform at the same level.

So if a list was, say 30 - 35, we wouldn't need to worry about VFL alignments that much. 22 playing with RFC, the obligatory 4-6 injured and rest playing for Coburg seniors (and only reserves if they are going really badly!).

I know people will say that we would never be able to "develop" players but the truth is we never really have been able to develop them for a very long time. Currently, the players we have "developed" into good AFL players would be: Newman, Deledio, Bowden, Richo, Pettifer, Tiv (sorry! well he has played 190 AFL games), Foley. Of course as others "develop" (Cotch, Tambling, White etc) Bowden, Tiv, Richo, Pettifer will disappear.

And (!) further to that, when we have 18 clubs the home and away season would only be 17 rounds ie play each other once so that there'd be less need for 42 players. 17 games, play each other once which is an uncompromised draw, less wear and tear on the players making them a bit fresher going into the finals.

Yes I know this is never going to happen...to much money to be lost by decreasing the seasons total by 23 games.

 

[The tooth]

I agree the affiliation is functioning well, but I am frustrated that the framework of rules does not allow the club to develop all of our players as freely as we should be able to. A relaxing on the cap on listed players should be the on the table with the AFL/VFL

 

[Tiger74]

Further to this point I still think 42 on the list is too many. We could cull a dozen players off our list and still perform at the same level.

So if a list was, say 30 - 35, we wouldn't need to worry about VFL alignments that much. 22 playing with RFC, the obligatory 4-6 injured and rest playing for Coburg seniors (and only reserves if they are going really badly!).

I know people will say that we would never be able to "develop" players but the truth is we never really have been able to develop them for a very long time. Currently, the players we have "developed" into good AFL players would be: Newman, Deledio, Bowden, Richo, Pettifer, Tiv (sorry! well he has played 190 AFL games), Foley. Of course as others "develop" (Cotch, Tambling, White etc) Bowden, Tiv, Richo, Pettifer will disappear.

And (!) further to that, when we have 18 clubs the home and away season would only be 17 rounds ie play each other once so that there'd be less need for 42 players. 17 games, play each other once which is an uncompromised draw, less wear and tear on the players making them a bit fresher going into the finals.

Yes I know this is never going to happen...to much money to be lost by decreasing the seasons total by 23 games.

This doesn't give much tolerance for injury. You may have 2-5 kids on a list at one time not ready for the real deal, and if you cop a hit like Essendon with 10+ injuries, you end up being forced to play kids who are not ready.

 

[seven]

Further to this point I still think 42 on the list is too many. We could cull a dozen players off our list and still perform at the same level.

So if a list was, say 30 - 35, we wouldn't need to worry about VFL alignments that much. 22 playing with RFC, the obligatory 4-6 injured and rest playing for Coburg seniors (and only reserves if they are going really badly!).

I know people will say that we would never be able to "develop" players but the truth is we never really have been able to develop them for a very long time. Currently, the players we have "developed" into good AFL players would be: Newman, Deledio, Bowden, Richo, Pettifer, Tiv (sorry! well he has played 190 AFL games), Foley. Of course as others "develop" (Cotch, Tambling, White etc) Bowden, Tiv, Richo, Pettifer will disappear.

And (!) further to that, when we have 18 clubs the home and away season would only be 17 rounds ie play each other once so that there'd be less need for 42 players. 17 games, play each other once which is an uncompromised draw, less wear and tear on the players making them a bit fresher going into the finals.

Yes I know this is never going to happen...to much money to be lost by decreasing the seasons total by 23 games.

Idealy increae the rookie list to 10 or 12 and cut the full time list down to 35.

Clubs would save money paying their junior players cutting their teeth in the 2's.

Would most likely need to increase the age limit on the rookie list as well.

 

[TOT70]

I'd like to see and increase in number of players on each team's list to around 50: this would allow teams to shadow their top 22 with replacements and have 5 or 6 development players. This would reduce the lottery aspect that injury causes.

The other thing I would like to see is some sort of free agency agreement for players from associated clubs. For example, if Richmond sustained a couple of serious early season injuries, they should be able to go to Coburg and upgrade a player to replace tht injured player for the season if they wanted to. They might even want to upgrade a player because he is blitzing in the VFL. Strict rules could be put into place, for example, the player might need to be older than 23.

In this way, a discarded or never-wanted player could get a late opportunity to play AFL on a short-term contract, perhaps with an option to upgrade at the end of the season. This happens in many other sports, notably Basketball.

 

[tigertim]

I'd like to see and increase in number of players on each team's list to around 50: this would allow teams to shadow their top 22 with replacements and have 5 or 6 development players. This would reduce the lottery aspect that injury causes.

The other thing I would like to see is some sort of free agency agreement for players from associated clubs. For example, if Richmond sustained a couple of serious early season injuries, they should be able to go to Coburg and upgrade a player to replace tht injured player for the season if they wanted to. They might even want to upgrade a player because he is blitzing in the VFL. Strict rules could be put into place, for example, the player might need to be older than 23.
In this way, a discarded or never-wanted player could get a late opportunity to play AFL on a short-term contract, perhaps with an option to upgrade at the end of the season. This happens in many other sports, notably Basketball.

Yeah, I meant to mention this aspect. I think it would be beneficial thing if for arguments sake a club needed a small forward. They could go to the VFL, SANFL, WAFL ETC and recruit the best available small forward on a short term contract.

 

[deledio3]

I'm hoping to see all the kids before the end of the season, we are all well aware of what Schulz, Hyde etc. are capable of, but we need to determine whether or not players like JON and Polo have a future at out club. This can't be done without them being able to play senior footy. As well as this, we should be seeing Rance, Collard, Graham and possibly Gourdis at least by the end of the season. If we're going to be using a priority pick on someone like Rance, he has to be given senior game time.