From realfooty
Draft age should be going up, not down
June 25 2003
By Peter Brukner
The possibility of raising the AFL draft age has struck a chord with those of us who regularly see in our sport medicine practices the disastrous consequences of pushing young bodies too hard, too early.
One has only to look at the top draft picks of the recent seasons to examine the effect of the demands of AFL football on young bodies. Justin Koschitzke, the No. 1 pick in the 2000 draft, missed virtually the whole of last season with a stress fracture of his back. Luke Hodge, the 2001 No. 1, had a delayed start to the 2002 season due to osteitis pubis then struggled with an Achilles tendon problem. Luke Ball, the No. 2 pick, hardly played at all last year because of osteitis pubis while No. 3 pick Chris Judd had two shoulder reconstructions before commencing his AFL career with the Eagles.
There is, unfortunately, another group of young players, also immensely talented footballers, who were not drafted at all because their bodies failed to cope pre-draft.
Are we demanding too much of these young men?
To be drafted, players must be 18 on or before June 30 the year after they are drafted. Most therefore turn 17 in the year they are drafted. The route to AFL football for a young player goes through the TAC Cup, the national under-18 competition. Players hoping to be drafted would hope to play two years of TAC Cup football, therefore playing their first season at 16. To even be selected for a TAC Cup squad they must have trained and played at a fairly intense level in the previous years as 14- and 15-year-olds.
TAC Cup teams of 16- and 17-year-olds start pre-season training in November, three evenings a week over the summer. They then play an 18-week TAC season and the better ones will play trial games and representative games. Most will play about 25 games a season. Until the last year or two they were also allowed to play for their schools as well and some would play up to 40 games a season.
The subsequent epidemic of osteitis pubis made coaches and administrators wake up to this overuse and limits have been placed on the number of games played.
As well as their form during the season, these players also undergo a series of performance assessments at the AFL draft camp. These include shuttle run, standing vertical jump, 20-metre sprint, three-kilometre time-trial and skinfold measurements. Their results are closely monitored by AFL scouts. So it is reasonable to assume that a potential AFL draft pick would also do extra training.
The physical maturity of 15-, 16- and 17-year-old boys varies enormously, as do the loads that their bodies can absorb. There are certainly 16-year-olds with fully mature bodies who are more than capable of withstanding the sort of training and games required of a potential AFL draftee.
But, there are many who are not and whose promising football careers are destroyed virtually before they start due to their inability to cope with these demands. The AFL clubs always quote the Tim Watson example as evidence that 16-year-olds are ready for the rigours of AFL football, but the exception does not make the rule.
For the majority of players, their final TAC Cup season and draft camp are taking place while they are doing VCE, the most important year of their academic life and an important step in determining their future. Surely it makes no sense to have the education "draft" and the football draft in the same year.
Rightly or wrongly, we often look to the US for leadership. It is interesting to note that the standard route for professional US basketballers, baseballers and footballers is through college, where they will be drafted on their performances over a four-year college career and not commence professional sport until they are aged 21 or 22.
There would appear to be very good reasons for raising the draft age by at least one year, if not two.
Peter Brukner is associate professor in sports medicine at Melbourne University.
