The unpopular rule that will be one of the key issues at AFL meeting

Some club figures believe no change is necessary, and that the league should not react to the exception rather than the rule.

Some senior league figures dislike the system where father-son players like Sam Darcy and Nick Daicos, who were bid on in the first four picks of the 2021 draft, could be secured by their clubs using a handful of picks in the late 30s.

The league will also look at changes to the academy system where clubs are only entitled to get priority access to a player if no bid is made on that player before pick 40.

That has been widely criticised as a disincentive to clubs investing time, effort and money in identifying and developing a player if they are only valued as a third round pick or later.

The West and South Australian clubs have pushed for a national reserves competition and join the VFL, which has already expanded into an eastern seaboard competition taking in the four northern clubs. The clubs believe there is an impact on the development of their young players by playing in the two state leagues.

Two AFL sources familiar with the review, who would not speak publicly because it had not yet been presented to the clubs, said that because of the likely expense, the AFL was more likely, in the first instance, to persuade the SANFL and WAFL to change rules around top-up players and issues such as fixturing to bring them into line with how the VFL operates before it jumped to expanding to a national reserves competition.

A push by Fremantle and West Coast for concessions due to their far more onerous travel demands is another issue for the commission to decide.

The clubs want to play at least one more home game each or have clubs come to Perth for a mini hub for several weeks as a way of mitigating travel. They also want to have no six-day breaks between games after travel.

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