Revealed: ‘Very different’ way Tassie will poach rival stars amid $1.5m AFL bonus
The Tasmania Devils will reportedly need to trade for established players from the outset — unlike Gold Coast and GWS — while the 19th club will have up to $1.5 million in sign-on bonuses when it enters the AFL in 2028.
The Suns and Giants had a suite of first-round picks ahead of their AFL inception in the early 2010s, loading their lists with young talent and spending their first several years in the competition getting frequently blown out by 100-plus points and finishing at the bottom of the ladder.
The AFL’s two most recent expansion sides were also allowed access to an uncontracted player from each other club.
However Herald Sun reporter Sam Landsberger revealed the Devils will be effectively forced to use some of their high draft picks as currency – in key learnings from Gold Coast and GWS – in the AFL’s bid to make Tasmania instantly competitive.
“What I can tell you tonight is it’s going to be very different to Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney,” Landsberger began on Fox Footy’s Midweek Tackle.
“This is a clear mandate from the AFL: ‘We cannot have a team come in and win wooden spoon after wooden spoon and be uncompetitive and basically unwatchable.’
“My understanding is the big difference is that they’re going to get very similar draft concessions — it might be picks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10 and 11 — but they’re going to have to trade away multiple picks to land established stars.
“It’s a win-win for the competition.”
It’d also help rebuilding clubs when Tasmania joins the AFL in 2028 as they could trade ageing stars for early picks to ensure they’re not denied access to top-end talent in compromised drafts.
“The knock on effect is if you are at ground zero and in rebuild mode – so if you’re West Coast or North Melbourne now and Tassie was coming in, if it was like it was 10 years ago, you’re basically stuffed. The handbrake goes on your rebuild,” Landsberger explained.
“Under this model, you’re not locked out of the top 10 of the draft. You can trade some players who aren’t going to be there when you’re contending and really dominate that pointy end (of the draft).
“So you’ve got a Tasmanian team that won’t have too many kids and are mature enough to compete and you don’t absolutely sabotage the clubs at the bottom.”
It comes as the Herald Sun journalist Jon Ralph reported Tasmania will have between $1 million and $1.5 million in sign-on bonuses outside its salary cap spending to attract opposition players — a luxury it’ll only be afforded for its first season.
The AFL salary cap is set for $18.4 million in 2027 and will rise again in 2028.
Chief Herald Sun reporter Mark Robinson on Fox Footy’s AFL 360 suggested North Melbourne young gun Colby McKercher, who’s from Tasmania, “could be the first $2 million player” as an obvious target for the Devils.