Our lack of Indigenous players is embarrassing.

[inxs88]

Yeah that's great but where are the original drafted indigenous players on our list??

[Lazza]

[RudeBoy]

No club just recruits on the basis of talent alone. That's why they undertake interviews with prospective players, and often talk to their families as well. The fact is, whether people like to admit it or not, players from many Indigenous communities, face extra challenges and hurdles, often having to overcome generations of marginalisation, disadvantage, poor education, and sadly environments with high rates of alcoholism, substance abuse and violence. When you pack all of that together, it's perfectly understandable that AFL clubs might be cautious about recruiting Indigenous players from these types of backgrounds, regardless of their football talent.

The Richmond Football Club has established, with the AFL, a fully fledged Indigenous Football Academy, located at their Punt Road Headquarters, in order to create a terrifically supportive and nurturing environment for Indigenous players. This ultimately makes it easier to make the decision to draft Indigenous players, knowing they have the appropriate support networks in place, to maximise the chance of success. While Collingwood does fantastic work in the broader space of Indigenous community work, through its Barrawan Program, we lack the commitment to having an Indigenous Football Academy like the Tigers. It seems to me they are reaping the rewards of this (2 flags in 3 years with a bunch of Aboriginal players in their team), while we have decades of perceived neglect in this area to overcome.

[Doug44]

[qldmagpie67]

[magpieazza]

[Mr Miyagi]

Jack Martin said he'll go to Carlton if Eddie Betts is there, because he wants to learn under Eddie Betts. This is why I wanted us to take a punt on Betts.

[Lazza]

[eddiesmith]

[Mr Miyagi]

The fact is Jack Martin wants to go to Carlton to learn from Eddie Betts.

[Presti35]

We had Liam Jarrah in the VFL and then the Demons took him with pick one in the rookie draft and claimed they'd found him.

Then the dropped him like a hot potato when he got in strife.

[Presti35]

Jack Martin may enter the national draft. That'd be something.

Although it's likely he goes into the Pre-Season draft to increase his chances of getting to Carlton, with Melbourne the only obstacle.

[swoop42]

If I recall correctly the names of Stack and Pickett were identified as potential recruitment targets by the likes of Snoop Dog and Knightmare long before they were drafted. They came with a few queries attached and like 17 other clubs we decided to overlook both.

Richmond though were prepared to give them a chance with Hardwick even going the extra mile by hosting Stack at his home like he had previously done with Rioli. He should be congratulated on this.

We don't have to like Richmond but to their credit I think we can learn a thing or two about fostering indigenous talent as our history is rather embarrassing in this area with Davis our only real success story when it comes to developing from within.

Personally I like the idea of creating a position within the club that is focused on the welfare and development of indigenous talent and those from other minority groups.

By all reports Varcoe and Wells are already seen within our ranks as great mentors to our young players so extending their abilities to this role would seem a natural progression for one of them.

Take this step though then I feel we need to take an affirmative action approach with recruitment.

Now that doesn't mean we overlook a far more talented footballer in favour of someone simply because they're indigenous or other minority but if it's a close call or it involves the use of a speculative selection like a 4th round or rookie pick then I'd like to see us weight more decisions in favour of them across the decade.

My thinking here with indigenous recruitment in particular is somewhat in line with the philosophy that Brisbane have taken in recent seasons where they've looked to take players in a draft that have some form of connection whether that be because they played junior football against each other or come from country regions.

Recruiting one indigenous kid then following that up spasmodically is not the way to improve our ability to nurture the talent available within this community IMO. We need to take multiple indigenous players in the one draft and/or across successive years as it's not unreasonable to suggest that young players settle and thrive in a new environment easier when confronted with more people they can easily identify with.

While I don't believe we have any racist intent in our drafting I don't feel we're as prepared as some clubs to take on as many players who might come with added baggage attached because of a disadvantaged background.

While my viewpoint might be controversial to some after 120 years of existence for the Collingwood Football Club don't you wish we had more examples of success to show when it comes to developing indigenous footballers?

I do and it's time to make a concerted effort to improve in this area.

[pacmanOz]

What other quotas aren't we hitting?
All I want is for our recruiters / football department to do is to select the best footballers available when it comes to trade and draft.
Any form of social engineering has no place in a professional organisation (unless we are in the game of politics, and even then you wont last long).
I'd hate to have our Kevin Petersen moment because of a quota.

[Doug44]

Fully 100% agree with swoop.

The take the best player available argument obviously works in theory but not in practice. No-one should just take the best player anyway, there's more to it.

If the best two players in the draft were from Perth and Melbourne, and a Perth team had the first pick and a Melbourne the second, the Perth team would be foolish to take the Melbourne player, if it's line ball. If there's an obvious best player then fine take the best player.

That is what swoop is saying. Not that we should have a quota, read what he said and challenge yourself to actually take it on. If there are two players we rate equally that are available, one is indigenous and one is not, given our lack of representation, we should take the indigenous player.

And we clearly haven't been taking the best player, given indigenous players make up 10% of the AFL and our representation is currently 1 player. We'll see what happens in the draft.

This oversight is costing us by that few %.

I would be very surprised if the club aren't having these conversations. The question is whether they want to influence the recruiting department or as Geoff Walsh would say "let the baker bake".

Sure, let him or her bake. As long as they follow the recipe.