In the AFL’s long history, there have been multiple father-son picks who have majorly influenced team success. Some of the greats like Ben Cousins, Gary Ablett Jr and Dustin Fletcher all followed in their father’s footsteps to create history.

But the father-son rule, which, in its simplest form, gives teams recruiting advantages in selecting sons of former players, is arguably the league’s most unequal rule.

The rule has undergone a number of changes over the years. And now, the upcoming introduction of the Tasmanian Devils could also shake up this unique tradition even further.

How does the father-son rule work?

The rule was introduced shortly after the Second World War and Melbourne Football Club famously lobbied for the rights to AFL legend Ron Barassi Jr in its early years of implementation.

As the game has grown and evolved to an 18-team competition, the League has tightened the rules on drafting these sons. Teams have gone from recruiting players straight onto their list, to now having to give up multiple draft picks to establish ‘points’ in the draft to earn the player.

Nowadays, for a player to be eligible for the father-son rule, the father must play 100 games at one club. Then, before entering the draft, their son must choose whether he will give that club the rights to select him.

Enter the Tasmanian Devils.

The Devils will most likely struggle in their first few seasons, similarly to how the Gold Coast Suns and GWS Giants did. Under current rules, they would have to wait at least 20 years for their first genuine father-son pick. However, as The Age reported last year,  the Tasmanian team will have the rights to the sons of any fathers born in Tasmania who have played more than 100 total games in the league. But if they have played the required games for one club, then the young player will have to nominate which team they’d prefer to join.

Justin Sherman played 114 games for the Brisbane Lions and 24 games for the Western Bulldogs but was born and played junior football in Tasmania. He tells upstart he’d be open for his son to play for Tasmania if he continues developing through the ranks.

“At the end of the day, you always back the judgement of what your family want to do, I’ll back whatever decision my son wants to make if that happens in the future,” he says.

Should we mess with tradition again?

At their end of season awards night, St Kilda Football Club president Andrew Bassat called for the rule to be scrapped. Labelling the current father-son and academy rules “rubbish”, he said that he felt the interstate teams got more of an advantage out of the rules.

Oliver Caffery, a sports journalist for the Australian Associated Press, tells upstart that he thinks the AFL will never remove the rule because of the romance attached to it.

“You look at the storylines that have come out of the Daicos’ being amazing players across generations. Like, Peter was an absolute gun and his sons are doing the same. Now Nick is probably going to overtake him,” he says.

Sherman doesn’t think the rule should be abandoned either, because its rich history makes the game unique. But he would love to see his hometown state succeed as well.

“What I like about it is the father of the family has had a significant impact on the footy club. It’s something that is tradition of our game and something that shouldn’t be tarnished,” he says.

“I think tradition of the rule should stay and then any way the league can assist Tassie to fast track their list, especially in the first couple of years, I think the AFL should open up the doors to that as well.”

How much of an advantage could it be for the Devils?

Caffrey offers a solution for the AFL to give the Devils to make it fairer:, changing the rule from fathers needing to play 100 games to far less games. The AFL has previously provided drafting and recruitment assistance to clubs in need, and he believes this wouldn’t be too different to those examples.

But he also points to the AFLW and their rules on father/daughter drafting.

For example, the AFLW introduced a father-daughter rule to help grow the women’s game, requiring the dad to only play one game in the AFL. Soon there will be a mother-daughter rule which applies the same criteria to former AFLW players. Although Caffrey believes a similar rule could be introduced for the Devils, he also acknowledges if things remain on the same trajectory, and the Devils got the rights to any player who is from Tasmania and is eligible for the 100 games, “the original clubs wouldn’t be happy”.

“Tasmania are going to have a lot of picks anyway, they’re going to have a lot of concession, so they are going to be looked after there,” he says.

The Tasmanian Devils are set to be introduced into league in the 2028 season making the competition grow to 19 teams.

The likes of Grant Birchall and Jeremy Howe could have family dominating for the Devils in the future, giving the state an exciting look at homegrown star talents as they establish themselves in the league.

Article: Cooper O’Brien is a second-year Bachelor of Media and Communications (Sports Journalism) student at La Trobe University. You can follow him on Twitter @cjob05.

Photo: Clarence vs Lauderdale by Jacob Harris is available HERE and is used under a Creative Commons License. This image has not been modified.