‘Want fairness’: AFL coach’s tirade

St Kilda coach Ross Lyon launched a tirade against the AFL as changes to the draft system loom, declaring officials had “abdicated their responsibility” when it comes to development and demanded club-based academies be shut down in favour of ones run by the league.

As he said clubs were “mature” enough to handle rivals actively seeking to lure players, amid reports Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell called off-contract Saints utility Josh Battle to talk through an offer from the Hawks, Lyon went on the attack over access to young talent.

Declaring the Saints one of the teams that had “least benefited” from the growth in club-run academies, with access to talent lost and complicated by a convoluted points system, Lyon said he would be a “loud voice” in the ongoing debate.

Lyon said the club-based academies, particularly those in Queensland and NSW, had essentially set up recruitment “zones” again, a system the league abandoned when it first created the draft.

“Clearly, we just want fairness, so if you know it’s unfair, which the AFL knows it is, why perpetuate unfairness and inequity?” Lyon said.

“I’ve been around a long time, and it used to be zones and you harvest your zones. There used to be inequality in zones, less productive zones … it was luck of the draw.

“They got rid of zones and made it one big pond to grab players out of, everyone could fish in the same pond.

“Then the AFL took over talent pathway, which is great. But for whatever reason they abdicated their responsibility on academies in each state and thought clubs could do it better.

“We’ve actually created zones again. They are almost like state zones.”

Lyon said he sent the same message to AFL boss Andrew Dillon earlier in the year, telling him to abandon club zones as the only way to enable unfettered access for all clubs to players and create the equality they seek.

“I put it on the table with Andrew Dillon at a dinner earlier in the year with coaches,” he said.

“We lost an incredible amount of good coaches through Covid that would be easily picked up and know how to farm talent and develop talent in academies that would be run out of the AFL, then everyone could fish from the same pond,” Lyon said.

“I like the idea of development, but as the club which has least benefited, and therefore experiences the least fairness, we are a loud voice at the table. I still think the academies should be run out of the AFL, the gatekeeper of the game and talent.

“Ultimately, over a fair period of time head office had abdicated its responsibility to drive that talent pathway.”