The AFL's contentious father-son rule remains in the spotlight, with clubs appealing for a shift in the rules that have allowed some teams to secure some of the sport's best young talent virtually unopposed.
While there is a draft bidding process in place, the reality is the teams that have first rights to pick up talent like the Daicos and Ashcroft brothers ultimately get deals over the line.
Any change to the process is tipped to be a gradual transition, rather than a sudden shift in the rules.
AFL.com.au draft expert Callum Twomey believes any reconfiguring of list management rules needs to be gradual, using the recent example of the Brisbane Lions.
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“That’s been my view,” Twomey told SEN. “Brisbane have done it wonderfully.
"The Lions didn’t win the flag last year because of the academy and father-sons, that is not the way it rolled out.
"But knowing they had the Ashcroft boys (Will and Levi), Jaspa Fletcher on the horizon and this year Dan Annable as another midfielder, it allowed them to recruit around them.
“They targeted top end players at either end of the ground as free agents and recruits, they drafted in that sort of way as well – they picked up Logan Morris in a draft where they knew they could only really take the talls.
“It’s a long-term strategy and to bring it in overnight, to change that and to lock it out, would really affect that."
While father-son prospects obviously differ in talent levels, the top-end talent that would be drafted early each year without father-son are the real points of contention.
Twomey feels it would take some years to improve that process and make it a more balanced playing field.
“If we want to preserve the father-son, and I know there’s different views on that, but the AFL has said it wants to preserve the role of the father-son – it’s not going to be preserved by belated picks," he said.
"The later father-sons just generally don’t play very much, it’s the top-end guys that do.
“There is a way to make it fairer though, which I think is real, but just make that over a couple of years.”