- 1986 VFL Draft
The 1986 VFL Draft was the first formal draft to provide recruitment opportunities to clubs participating in
Australian rules football 's elite Victorian Football League. Held after the end of the 1986 season, it consisted only of the National Draft itself.National Draft
All twelve established clubs, along with one of the two teams set to debut in the competition, the
Brisbane Bears , were given one pick in each of the five rounds, a total of 65 overall. Brisbane received the first selection in every round, and six pre-draft selections, as well as complete access to all players from Queensland.The other new side, West Coast, was also granted similarly exclusive home-state rights. However, with the superior range of players available from the
West Australian Football League , the club withdrew from the draft.The order of the remaining picks was set in the reverse of the previous season's finishing positions.
In addition, the established Victorian clubs maintained sole recruitment options on players from the relevant Metropolitan and, for the last time, Country Zones. This meant that even before the draft had started, the most sought-after footballers from Victoria were already signed, and therefore unavailable for selection.
The restricted pool of available draftees meant the majority of those chosen in the 1986 National Draft came from South Australian and Tasmanian clubs. Meanwhile, although the minimum age for eligible players was 16, many were actually into their twenties, unlike the contemporary teenage selections. Also of note is the significant number of those picked either did not join the club that selected them at all, or at least did not do so straight away.
A prime example was the number one draft pick,
Martin Leslie . Leslie served out the remaining two years of his contract with Port Adelaide, winning All-Australian honours at the Adelaide Bicentennial Carnival in the process. Only then did he moved to Brisbane, making his debut as a 26-year-old in 1989 and going on to play over 100 times during the course of seven seasons. In contrast, the second selection overall, the similarly agedSteven Sims , opted to remain in South Australia rather than join theSt Kilda Football Club . [cite news |last=Quayle |first=Emma |url=http://www.theage.com.au/realfooty/news/afl/the-draft-blows-in/2006/11/17/1163266783992.html |title=The draft blows in |publisher=The Age |date=2006-11-17 |accessdate=2007-05-14]Although many other 1986 draftees never played in a senior match, several did go on to make their name as footballers, among them Melbourne's
Steven Febey andDarrin Pritchard of Hawthorn. However, the most notable of the draft's recruits wasAlastair Lynch , picked by Fitzroy at number 50 overall, who eventually passed the major milestone of 300 appearances, which included three victorious Grand Finals with theBrisbane Lions .Pre-Draft Selections
National Draft Selections
External links
* [http://afl.com.au/Season2007/NABAFLRisingStarsProgram/NABAFLDraft/tabid/282/Default.aspx Official AFL Draft page]
References
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