The USA adopts the idea of a draft to get players from college to professional teams, where there are several rounds and each team gets a pick. The question is, could a mock draft work in Wales?
HOW WILL IT WORK AND BENEFITS
If we split Wales’ youth players into four sections (north, east, south, west) and then said that any region can draft a player in a draft round system, as seen in the NFL, there would be an even balance of skills and players represented with the best talent on show. The four current Welsh regions would still have their zones and areas of catchment of which they can take and look for players directly in welsh clubs and the premiership. However there would be 10-12 rounds of drafts at the end of every season so sometime in May/June. This would be each region gets to pick 1 player from norther, then south, then west, then east. They do this 3 times each for each area.
The order for choosing players will go in order of that of the regions performances in the previous season, thus making it fair. The worst record overall in the league and cup would go first, then the next worst, then the next and finally the best record. Teams could trade players with another academy if they wished, however how realistic is that, very unlikely i would think. They can trade a player for a draft pick if they wished, although with only four drafting teams at this moment in time, there wouldn’t be one team missing out on the best talent if they held the best record.
Teams would then have their full squad completed. This may not be able to be completed however as if a team has only room for 8 players, then they will only be eligible for 8 draft rounds. That would mean that they drop out and the draft continues as normal and in the same order minus a team, this would happen till all teams have filled their player quota or have run out of draft rounds.
This would get up to 48 more players drafted, as well as spotting many more at a young age. It would be better for development long term, as well as boosting esteem of players, nationwide with them being able to get selected.
WEAKNESSES
However as all our regions are based in south wales any players in the north half of wales would find it nigh on impossible to make training and games with north wales being around 2 1/2 hrs by car minimum and so geographically this plan is viable unless RGC1404 get made into a north Wales region.
Another problem would be that if a side has only 1 or 2 slots and this is the same for all our regions, then less players will be drafted and so a lack of opportunity for lots of young stars may never arise.
It would be expensive for regions to send scouts up north and far west and east just to see a bunch of players that may or may not be as good as they would like.
A lot of youngsters in one area that get picked now , would not get picked in the future if this was implemented as it spreads the pickings across the whole of Wales as applied to just one county. E.g. Newport Gwent Dragons in Blaenau Gwent.
MOCK DRAFT
A good idea for this is too have a mock draft where neutral WRU officials would scout out or clubs put young players forward for selection, and then it is up to the regions to send any more scouts out if they thought it was necessary to do so. All players would have a profile put online and even supporters could put up videos or comments to help and show the regions what that player can do, and this could be created by putting all this data on a website to do with a mock draft/draft with links to the WRU.
The regions could also put forward coaches in the mock draft, showing they are willing to trade a coach for a coach, a coach for a player or a coach for a drafting spot. The mock draft would take place in the Six Nation’s period where teams have a good chance to get players in and test them out, whilst the internationals are all away. It would be a good six to eight week period where most players will be put forward with a few coming after it as well.
HOW LIKELY IS THIS
The actual implementing of this idea is not that likely, with the financial systems unable to back this sort of transfer or this amount of players up over an extended periods of time. It wouldn’t give enough players a guaranteed position or pathway to the world of professional rugby. It wouldn’t be a good option for those up north as they wouldn’t want or couldn’t travel down to the south coast three or more times a week for training and matches.
However it could be an option if our current system of scouting local areas and picking the best for academies descends into the doom and gloom that some say regional rugby has and so a backup plan could always be welcomed by the hierarchy of Pro Rugby Wales (PRW), the clubs and the WRU.
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