If you want romance, pay for it: Why the AFL’s father-son rules should change

St Kilda supporters just have to take it on trust that watching a father-son selection run around for the team their dad played for is enjoyable.

They haven’t had that luxury since Bailey Rice played the last of his 11 games with the club in 2018, when he was the second father-son selection to play in a St Kilda jumper.

Their main memory of father-sons is Geelong’s Gary Ablett jnr and Matthew Scarlett combining in the defining moment of the 2009 grand final to sink the Saints.

Although it’s a much-loved feature of the game and one that could be preserved in some form, the current father-son rules are distorting competitive balance too much to survive.

They will remain as expected in 2025, when Harry Dean joins the Blues, and should remain beyond that too, until Koby Bewick and Cody Walker make their way to Essendon and Carlton, respectively.

But they should look much different by the end of the decade.

Here’s why.

The Brisbane Lions deserve every piece of success that comes their way because the work of their coach, players and administration has been outstanding since Chris Fagan arrived.

However, their luck in getting the Ashcroft brothers – both considered at worst a top five pick in the 2022 and 2024 national drafts – at the end of seasons in which they reached a preliminary final and won a flag is not allowing the draft to work as a competitive balance mechanism.

To top it off they will get another priority selection – this time via their academy – in Daniel Annable at the end of this season.

The Lions will have added a player rated top five in the country to their list in three of the past four seasons – while competing in September. They will have paid for them via a bunch of late second-round selections, under the system that allows clubs to use later picks to match the points value of earlier selections.

The draft was designed as a mechanism to give clubs at the bottom of the ladder access to the best talent in the country each season.

Results say it’s not working that way.

In the 14 seasons since St Kilda played in the 2010 grand final, neither Essendon, the Saints nor the Suns have reached a preliminary final. Of the 46 preliminary final spots available, 30 have been claimed by Collingwood, Geelong, Hawthorn, Sydney and the Lions.

In the 11 seasons between 2000-10, every team made a preliminary final and the spread was more even.

These are raw measures, but ones the AFL uses to trumpet equalisation.

Yes, the Saints’ and the Bombers’ messes are of their own making over the past decade (and they may still stuff it up yet) but that doesn’t mean a club in their position shouldn’t have access to the country’s best young talent, not just some of the country’s best young talent.

The eligibility for men – 100 games played – reinforces the gap. Less successful clubs have fewer players reach the milestone.

On Saturday, Jack Sinclair became the ninth current Saint to reach 100 games.

The perennially successful Geelong have 13 current players with 100 games or more and Max Holmes is just three matches from reaching the mark.

St Kilda’s Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera needs to re-sign to reach 100 games.

In their history, Geelong have had 174 players reach 100 games, the Saints just 138.

Five Saints who played in the 2009 grand final didn’t play 100 games with the club. Just one Cat, Mark Blake (99 games) – the third father-son in that team – didn’t.

Gold Coast and the Giants have academies but no hope of father-sons in this era and the Crows and Dockers have largely done without them.

The romance argument is shaky, too, because games are a raw measurement of romantic attachment.

Marlion Pickett is a life member at Richmond. His story is one of the most famous at Tigerland. He played just 91 matches at the club.

Joe Daniher won a flag with the Brisbane Lions but did not play 100 matches for the club. He played 108 at Essendon.

Jack Silvagni is the latest in a line of father-sons to consider leaving the club their dad represented. People care, but they moved on in the cases of Heath Shaw, Josh Kennedy and Jarrad Waite.

Daicos is Collingwood. Kennedy was Hawthorn, Ablett was Geelong, Daniher was Essendon. Silvagni has been Carlton. All names remain synonymous with their clubs, but with an asterisk.

I don’t suggest scrapping father-sons. But clubs must pay the right price for romance.

Trade up to pick the player you desire and if you miss out on them, then chase them in a future trade period where the market determines the price.

The AFL Commission has kicked the hard decision down the road, but competitive balance must prevail.

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