More change is coming to the AFL Draft. Its effects may finally allow clubs to rebuild through youth, but the remedy has arrived far too late to equalise the AFL's two-tiered competition.
The tool introduced in 1986 to proliferate equality across a national competition will undergo its sixth makeover in a decade come November's draft; an influx of compensation picks the antidote of AFL House once more.
From 2026, if a club's top five pick is pushed down the order by the earlier selection of a father-son or academy prospect they will receive a pick directly after their second-rounder. If Dougie Cochrane or Cody Walker are bid on with the first selection - a distinct possibility in 2026 - there will be five extra selections plucked out of thin air and tacked onto the front end of the draft's second round.
These compensation picks are introduced along with a steeper Draft Value Index (DVI), effectively making it difficult to match early bids on club-tied prospects as points are stripped from the draft. Clubs must match any bid with a maximum of two picks, and can go into deficit on the following year's draft hand if those picks do not make up the points value required to secure the player.
Brisbane would not be able to use picks 34, 35, 38, 40 and 41 to match Will Ashcroft's selection at pick two as they did in 2022. Equally, they would have had to come up with another method to match Levi's pick five bid in 2024 which only required selections 40, 42, 43, 44 and 46 with thanks to the discount on matching father-son bids.
Instead of a discount, the Lions and Cats will cop a 20 percent points levy on matching bids this year as grand finalists of the previous season, as reported by afl.com.au. Preliminary finalists receive a 10 percent loading, while non-finalists will enjoy the 10 percent discount previously in play.
It makes matching top end bids near impossible for successful clubs without giving up a star player, a change that should offer up more top talent to bottom teams.
These moves are being made to address the two-tiered competition rearing its head in recent years, with uncompetitive teams unable to sustainably rebuild through the draft. Just last year Richmond's selections at two and three (via a trade with North Melbourne the year prior) ended up at seven and eight on draft night.
Unfortunately, teams firmly entrenched in that second tier of the ladder are the biggest immediate losers from these changes in 2026.
Carlton sits at 1-6 on the season and may still require two first round picks to select Walker despite currently holding the no. 3 selection. If he receives a bid at one, which clubs are now heavily incentivised to make, the Blues will need both their selection and the Swans' pick (acquired in the Charlie Curnow trade) to match and will still risk going into deficit, pushing their 2027 first round pick down the order.
Cochrane is tied to Port Adelaide's NGA through his indigenous lineage and is worthy of the pick one title this year. To match that bid - even including a 10 percent non-finalist discount - Port Adelaide will require two top-10 picks. There's no wiggle room for the Power to accumulate points through trades down the board; if they can't muster up two high-end selections, Cochrane will land elsewhere.
In 2023 the Western Bulldogs traded three first-rounders to select Ryley Sanders at pick six, and in 2019 the Giants used picks six, 12, 18 and a future first to get up and grab Lachie Ash at no. 4. Acquiring top picks has always been difficult and these changes only enhance their value.
The draft has now hit a stage where clubs must consider if it's worth matching bids on highly-rated prospects. Port Adelaide's clear option to find the points for Cochrane is allowing Zak Butters his exit, and clubs like Richmond and West Coast would be remiss to omit club-tied prospects from their draft boards as has been the case in previous years.
These changes should aid struggling clubs. What has frustrated the footy world to no end is the process it's taken to arrive here.
In 2021 Melbourne was denied access to NGA star Mac Andrew who got snapped up by Gold Coast. The following year the rules changed.
Since the Suns took Andrew they have selected nine academy talents in the first round. The Lions have secured five club-tied talents across that four-year period.
The Lions are clearly built to win now, but the back-to-back premiers are also building to win into the 2030s thanks to lenient draft rules.
It's a stroke of good fortune for the Queensland clubs that no academy prospect is expected to land in the top 10 this year after seven northern academy prospects made up the first round in 2025.
As the AFL continues to double down on some mechanisms and wind back others, the problems will arise as loopholes emerge. Clubs have been a step ahead of the AFL at the draft table all the way and the continual shift towards a compensation ecosystem will only promote exploitation.
There's now incentive on the bottom five teams to bid on club-tied prospects and generate their extra pick. There's additional in-season tanking incentive as the trade value of premium picks rises with the clamouring to match bids, and the desperation to secure their own youngsters becomes a reality. The weight of expectation will only grow on these top talents as entire draft hands are used to match a single bid.
The Blues with Walker, the Bombers with Koby Bewick, and the Power with Cochrane and Zemes Pilot will all be disproportionately affected in the coming years. With vested interest, the Blues and Power unsuccessfully lobbied the AFL for the grandfathering of these rules into future years, but now those re-tooling clubs will bear the brunt of the draft overhaul as Tasmania looms.