Call for changes to father-son eligibility

SHOULD the children of premiership players automatically become eligible for father-son selection?

That is what Geelong’s Isaac Smith wants after he became a premiership Cat last season.

Currently, a player is only eligible if their father played 100 or more senior games for a club, while West Coast, Fremantle, Port Adelaide and Adelaide can select draftees whose father played a certain number of games for specific sides in the SANFL or WAFL.

While Smith’s children will be eligible for father-son selection at Hawthorn – where he played 210 games – he feels kids of premiership players should receive the same draft rights.

“I always said when you play in a premiership for a club you should fall under the father-son realm because once that happens, you are forever connected to an organisation and I’m lucky that has happened at both clubs,” he said at a press conference in the lead-up to his 50th game for Geelong on Thursday night.

“I know my daughter, who is three-and-a-half is an avid Cats fan but when the Hawks were running around on [last] Sunday, she said she ‘didn’t like Cats anymore dad’, as she was wearing Cats attire.

“I still very much enjoy watching the old club [Hawthorn] run around and feel very proud to be a part of the Geelong footy club.”

Responding to Smith, SEN Breakfast’s Garry Lyon and Tim Watson discussed why they disagreed with the wingman’s concept.

Former Essendon captain Watson has a soft spot for the concept after his boy Jobe was drafted to the Dons as a father-son back in 2002.

Watson: “I respect his opinion and he’s right to express it. I like it when people bring up these things, particularly current day players, but I don’t support that.

“Because I think we’ve got it right. I think it’s the recognition of tenure at a football club. To have played 100 games means that you have been associated with a football club for a long time.

“You can come in and play three games at a football club, it could have been [Marlion] Pickett who played in that grand final which was his first senior game for Richmond. Premiership player and then under what Isaac is saying there, that would qualify any of his sons to be Richmond players.

“I disagree with it.”

Lyon: “Why? He’s a life member as a result of it.”

Watson: “That’s true but that is a Richmond decision that he’s a life member, that’s not an AFL decision.”

Lyon: “True. So, Isaac is giving the point where all his kids are eligible for father-son at Hawthorn but the likelihood of him playing 100 games required for eligibility at Geelong is pretty slim.

“Yet he’s a premiership player and a Norm Smith Medallist and he thinks his son should have the choice.”

Watson: “He’s a highly credentialed player, he’s going to end up on all the photos, he’s going to be able to celebrate a grand final reunion for the rest of his life.

“But it doesn’t necessarily mean the extension of that is that any of his kids should qualify to play for Geelong because dad played in a premiership team.

“That’s my opinion.”

Lyon: “I’m with you on that.

“I love the father-son, but we’ve already got this lopsided situation in footy where we’re trying these methods of equalisation and then one team can get the benefit of father-son to the point where it can get out of whack.

“All power to [them]. Geelong have had unbelievable results on the back of their father and sons. I don’t know whether we want to weight it anymore in favour of a team that’s had massive success from a father-son point of view.”

Watson: “I don’t think it will get any traction, this one.

“I like the idea of throwing things up and having a conversation around them, and we should debate them, but I just don’t think we have to head in that direction.”

– BY LACHLAN GELEIT/ SEN