As George Costanza once yelled: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”
The assistance package the AFL has bestowed upon the West Coast Eagles has riled me up, and I am ready to go full old man yells at cloud on this one.
For those who require any background info, the West Coast Eagles have sucked eggs for four years now, so the AFL deemed it in their best interest to help the once proud powerhouse return to its former glory by gifting it an end-of-first-round draft pick (pick 19).
Now, this isn’t uncommon. As footy fans, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing the AFL extend the olive branch to struggling clubs in an effort to help them climb up the ladder.
The Gold Coast was granted the opportunity to draft both newly-crowned Brownlow Medallist Matt Rowell and skipper Noah Anderson together thanks to AFL assistance, while North Melbourne’s recent handout helped them improve their list, with picks being granted to generate trades.
Further back, the Demons selected Tom Scully first overall with a little help from the AFL (Joe Cocker sang a song about it!).
“So what’s the big deal?” I hear you say. “Priority picks are common enough – why are your panties in a twist over this one?”
Well, there are a bunch of reasons many fans have raised their eyebrows at this particular assistance package being handed to the Eagles, but one in particular is grinding away at me. Let’s explore a few of these before I get to the point (because who doesn’t love a good cliffhanger?!).
The glaringly obvious one that we like to point out is that West Coast won a flag just seven years ago. They made finals the following two seasons after that, and finished ninth in 2021.
So really, they’ve only been bad for four years (although, this is a whole new level of downright dog-shit bad), and is that really long enough for a team to receive assistance?
I don’t really subscribe to this argument, because the AFL would counter it by saying it is in the competition’s best interest for this team to be more competitive regardless of how long they’ve been down, and I tend to agree.
Right now, playing the Eagles is the closest thing to a surefire four points that you can get. Along with a few other terrible sides, they were responsible for some of the most boring, lop-sided footy we have ever seen in 2025.
It’s why the top nine sides were so much better than the bottom nine (with a healthy Swans outfit being the exception), and I can see why the AFL is eager to create more parity throughout the competition.
The second reason fans are upset about the West Coast compensation is their enormous wealth off the field. This is a tenuous hold at best, and doesn’t really stack up given the assistance package is strictly relevant to on-field performance, but let’s dive into it anyway.
West Coast have flaunted their power, success, and status at every opportunity ever since they entered the national competition. They have four shiny cups sitting in their cupboard, and boy do their fans love to let us know about it (and fair play to them, they earned it!).
They are also among the richest clubs in the land, and with that comes stability. This sets them apart from other clubs who have gone to the AFL with their beggar’s bowl in hand.
North Melbourne was a rabble off the field (and still is) when they requested assistance, and the Suns certainly don’t have a 100,000-strong membership base to fall back on.
West Coast does, though, and many will say this off-field stability gives them the security they need to endure a long-term rebuild without assistance, knowing it won’t come at the cost of their entire club.
The argument is that things are not as dire here as they were at those other clubs, so let them wallow in the mire in their mediocrity for as long as it takes.
I don’t really buy this because, as one of my fellow Mongrel writers pointed out to me earlier this week, you can’t use off-field reasoning to bash an on-field decision (thanks Matty B-O!).
And finally, this leads me to the reason I am so mad about this whole assistance package shitshow. I’m not mad at the Eagles (any club in their position would take whatever help is offered to them), I’m mad at the AFL for contradicting itself and further compromising the National Draft yet again.
Let me explain further: West Coast is going to use the pick the AFL has plucked out of their arse and given to them (again, pick 19), and send it to Brisbane in exchange for hard nut defender Brandon Starcevich.
Of course, the issue here is, Starcevich is a free agent. There is simply no need to trade for him, so why would West Coast want to send pick 19 to the reigning premiers instead of signing Starcevich off the street and maintaining all of their draft capital?
Well, as most footy fans will already know, the Eagles are being granted pick 2 in the draft as compensation for losing Oscar Allen. A handsome prize for punting the captain they never really wanted to keep.
However, bringing in Starcevich as a free agent would off-set the loss of Allen, and cause this prized second overall pick to go up in smoke. So, in a bid to avoid this calamity, the Eagles will send their fresh new pick 19 over to Brisbane in a “trade” for Starcevich.
Facilitating this move as a “trade” allows the struggling Eagles to both bring in Starcevich and keep the second overall pick in the draft, thanks solely to the assistance package provided by the league.
You might be asking what’s wrong with that? They are down on their luck and the AFL is helping pick them off the canvas, right?
Well, the issue here is the AFL is enabling a club to completely bypass the system they themselves have implemented as their method of “maintaining fairness” across free agency.
Giving West Coast pick 19 as a means to dodge their own compensation system is basically the AFL’s way of saying: “Well hey, the system we devised and enforced on ALL clubs isn’t really helping you this year, so fuck it, here’s a free draft pick to help you avoid it.”
I mean, what’s the point of having a free agency compensation system at all if you’re just going to hand out draft picks so certain clubs don’t have to adhere to it? It is literally pointless, and not only that, by doing this the AFL itself is all but admitting to the fact that it doesn’t work.
Whether you agree with it or not (for the record, I don’t), the sole aim of the free agency compensation system is to look after clubs at the bottom of the ladder who lose their best players to clubs at the top of the ladder.
This situation is literally a club who had one win for the year losing their skipper to the premiers (it doesn’t get more lopsided than that) and the AFL has had to intervene because the system designed to look after the club losing their star is about to fail them (just because they want to bring a good, but not amazing, defender).
It’s a terrible system, and they can’t keep running it back.
In the background of all this is a very happy Brisbane Lions outfit. Fresh off the back of two flags on the trot, they’re about to bring in a rival club’s captain to fill their biggest need at key forward, AND they will receive a first round pick for a bloke that wouldn’t have netted them that kind of capital on the open market.
Of course, they will need to use this first round pick (as well as their own pick 18) to match a bid on likely top-five pick Daniel Annable, who is tied to them through their academy.
So, by handing West Coast pick 19, the AFL have also, in turn, given a leg up to the back-to-back premiers. They now have all the capital they need to bring in another top choice draft talent which they simply otherwise just wouldn’t have had.
I mean, if this doesn’t scream to you how absolutely bonkers and downright unfair the AFL draft has become, nothing will.
A club that won a flag seven years ago gets a draft pick they wouldn’t have had without AFL intervention (pick 2), and the reigning premiers get an easier run at perhaps the most elite talent in the draft pool.
Seriously, what are we doing here?
So, there you have it. That’s why I hate this assistance package – it’s a microcosm of why the AFL Draft is a complete shambles, and it’s of the AFL’s own doing.
Alas, I’ve yelled at enough clouds, and now I need to go mellow out. Perhaps I’ll go watch some Willem Duursma highlights?
