THE AFL has added a safeguard to its complicated draft bidding system to protect the future first-round picks of clubs who want to take a father-son or academy player late in the draft.
The League made the change to the academy bidding system to ensure clubs weren't deterred from choosing father-son or academy prospects late in the draft because of the risk that repaying any outstanding points the following year may have altered the position of their first pick.
Clubs can either find points in a single year through using points allocated to their existing draft selections up to pick No.74 or, if that is not possible, owe points the following season.
The changes mean, for example, that a club will not risk pushing back their first pick in the 2016 draft if they go into a points-debt by choosing a later-round academy selection this year.
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Any points incurred for these later round players can be repaid in the round the bid is received, after the AFL tweaked its new set of rules so that a first-round draft position was only altered if a bid came in the previous year’s first round.
If a player attracts a bid in the third round and is then chosen by the club with first access to the academy or father-son prospect later that round, the club has to find points the following year to pay for that player.
Under the slightly revised system the club will be able to recover those points from its third round selection rather than the first round allocation as was originally planned.
The anomaly would have meant that if the system had been in place last year then the Sydney Swans would have slipped back in the first round to repay the points used to acquire Jack Hiscox who was taken in the second round.
Under the new system, however, they will retain, for example, pick 17 even if they selected Hiscox the previous year and went into debt by 194 points.
Rather than spend the points in the first round and risk slipping back to pick 23 they will be able to spend the 194 points in the second round – where the bid for Hiscox was made – and slip back from 34 to 45.
The change will be vitally important to clubs who finish lower on the ladder such as the Brisbane Lions who may risk, for arguments sake, slipping from pick four to five if they acquire an academy graduate late in the previous year's draft.
Carlton might select Jack Silvagni and Bailey Rice under the father-son system this season, but if they owe points the following year those points may be paid in the same round as the bid for those players took place.
The complicated system that allocates points for each draft pick is having the kinks ironed out ahead of its introduction for this year's draft to ensure anomalies are removed.
The stated goals of the system is to be objective and fair, work consistently across all scenarios, flexible enough to facilitate the listing of father-son and academy players and provide incentives for clubs to invest in their academies and select father-son players.
All five Queensland prospects invited to the national draft combine in October are tied to the Brisbane Lions academy, while six of the seven New South Wales/ACT players are attached to Greater Western Sydney’s academy zone. 
