Why Dimma’s mid-year loan system is on the money.

I love the idea of a mid-season trade window to develop young players and support injury plagued clubs, especially if it means canning the mid-season draft.

Reinstated to limit the impact long-term injuries and retirements have on clubs during the season, this window gives teams a chance to replenish their lists for the second half of the year.

In theory the mid-season draft seemed straight forward, but in two years it has damaged the fabric of second tier competitions like the SANFL, VFL and WAFL. 

The fear in that AFL clubs with deep pockets knocking on the door of lower leagues, will poach their best players and decimate their team’s chance of success in the process has been proven true.

Clubs flagged that they’ll chase the best available young talent, who have either been in the system previously or who were ignored at last year’s national draft.

The total opposite reason as to why it was brought back in the first place.

It's a club’s list managers’ role to recruit players and manage their list for both the now and for the future – all the while keeping player payments strictly under the salary cap.

With more than 40 players on a club list, clubs have already built-in adequate depth to their playing stocks to cope if injuries and retirements hit.

It's a non-negotiable when developing and structuring lists in the first place.

As then Sturt coach and former AFL defender Nathan Grima revealed “the AFL has all the resources in the world, if you can’t go 22 weeks with 44 blokes on your list, what are you doing wrong?”

He’s right, Clubs must attempt to full proof their lists as much as possible.

And that's why Damien Hardwick’s suggestion of introducing a loan system makes far better sense “Anything that gives a young player a chance to play the game, I love,"

I get it the AFL wants as much player movement as possible. By creating more talk and player movement, the focus on Aussie Rules only becomes stronger and the coverage of the game increases.

But we should be looking internally, not externally, when trying to fix our list management problems during the season.

Why can’t we use the midseason period that starts in the split rounds as a mid-season trade window? Where clubs can trade in and out players currently on AFL lists to fix their own needs, instead of tearing apart second tier competitions playing stocks?

If a team needs a Ruckman, I would much rather see that club strike a trade for a player starved of opportunities at an opposing AFL club for the remainder of the season, than picking off easy targets from the level below.

We could even take it further and follow Soccer’s lead of loaning players in and out when the necessity arises.

All a club would need to do is take over the players salary, provided they have room in their salary cap and possibly strike a financial or trade deal with his club so they are fairly compensated.

And once the short-term loan expires, clubs may have the opportunity to make the loan/trade permanent - if not, the player returns to his original club after gaining valuable match experience at the top level in another AFL Clubs’ system.

This way players starved of opportunity in the system don't need to sit and wait until the end of the year to seek greener pastures and greater opportunity.

Either way, it’s better than tearing apart the lower leagues playing stocks.

It’s time to throw out the mid-season draft and make it a mid-season trade window like both the NBA and Soccer do, where players can move freely and clubs looking for short term replacements can deal to repair the holes on their list.

The mid-season draft is a waste of time. Let’s quit messing around and follow Dimma’s lead and rip off the bandaid and do it properly.

That way we all get what we want. Players get more opportunities and movement, and while we’re all talking about it - that suits the AFL just fine.