For and Against: An NFL-style rugby draft

Trevor Lawrence was the number one pick in the 2021 NFL Draft - but could the concept work in rugby?

Credit: Getty

Recent weeks across the US sporting world have been dominated by the build-up, events and fallout from the NFL draft.

In late April, over 250 of the top young athletes in American football went under the virtual hammer as they were signed to the franchise with which they will have the chance to start their NFL career.

The pomp and ceremony of the event is famous across the sporting world, with the resulting scrum of media and fan attention sustaining the game through the off-season and setting up endless plotlines that will play out over the coming season.

In an age where the debate over how to make rugby more commercially attractive and more of a draw to audiences, The Flanker feels no stone should be left unturned.

This includes considering the possibility of revolutionising the youth systems of rugby to incorporate a yearly draft system.

However, there would have to be a lot of considerations made to the current balance of the game and the structure of - particularly - the Premiership in England may well stand in the way of making the idea a reality.

It may be that elements of the PRO14 or Super Rugby, with their self-contained leagues and established teams, would make them more conducive to a draft system in the same way that it currently works in the US.

However, here is a look at the key arguments that would be put for and against the introduction of a draft system in the Gallagher Premiership.

Pros

More equal talent distribution and a more competitive league

Worcester Warriors have been regular relegation candidates in the Premiership - would a draft boost their prospects?

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The most obvious argument in favour of a draft, from an objective perspective, is that it opens up the possibility of a much more equal distribution of the best players.

When young players come through a draft system, as they do in the US, the whole system is structured to ensure the teams in the most need of the top talent gets first shot at them.

In the NFL, the team that was ranked bottom of the 32 franchises on win percentage across the previous season is given the first pick in every round in the draft - including the very first pick of all the available players.

This means they are best placed to recruit the top players and those players that best fit their needs, and can often be followed by a significant improvement as a result in the following season.

In the Gallagher Premiership, the quality of the academy system at clubs like Exeter Chiefs and Saracens and the pulling power of a side like Pat Lam’s Bristol Bears mean that the best talent is naturally going to end up concentrated in the hands of the top sides.

It leaves the perennial relegation candidates - the likes of Worcester, London Irish and sometimes Newcastle Falcons - fighting an uphill battle.

However, if they were given the first pick of the next crop of the top young players, it would help redress the balance and make for a more equal, more unpredictable and more exciting league.

While the quality of the academy would not be removed from the system entirely (more on that side of things a little further down), it would be a significant step towards keeping the gap between the top and bottom as tight as possible.

Hopefully, this would mean fewer dead rubber games, fewer one-sided contests and more attraction for audiences and broadcast cash alike.

Because you can hype it up

This may be an argument borne out of the age of social media and short attention spans, but the hype that can surround a draft should be counted as a reason for its existence.

Take the recent NFL draft as an example - even if one were to follow the official Instagram accounts of just a few franchises, you would have been bombarded across the three-day bonanza with clips, predictions, reaction, interviews and news.

If you’re into it, that is all you could ask for.

Even after the fact, there is endless potential to analyse, debate and engage fans - Who did well? Who got the most talented guys? Who would be disappointed? Who has solved their biggest problems and who has not?

The possibilities are endless and it has every reason to get fans excited to see their next generation of players enter the game in style.

What is more, you would come out of a rugby draft with a more intimate knowledge of the players that will be entering yours and other clubs over the coming weeks and months, giving you more storylines to follow and people to look out for in the coming season.

It has the potential to lend club rugby a sense of grandeur that it has not had in recent years and make the players into role models and recognisable faces in their own right.

Imagine it being streamed live through every club website, with each club’s director of rugby, scouts, coaching staff and academy bosses in attendance - seeing young players get the shot they have dreamed of and watching the future of squads take shape.

For the sake of argument, picture a backup scrumhalf from Bath who went on a contract to France in the offseason replaced by a highly-rated 9 from Newcastle University who has already been watched by Eddie Jones.

Fans are now invested in that young man and he is closer than ever to being a household name, which rugby probably needs more of. It doesn’t mean everything, but it’s an exciting start.

The role of universities

This may be missing the wood for the trees, but it may genuinely ensure that rugby players receive more full and rounded education.

Universities have produced players like Alex Dombrandt, famously a product of Cardiff Met, but such obvious successes in the transition from college to professional rugby is few and far between in this country whereas, in the US, it is the beaten track.

Players in America go to college/university after school, often on scholarships, and ply their trade there, enhancing their skills and getting used to the top-level intensity, while simultaneously needing to ensure their grades are at the level that allows them to continue in university education.

The question of what players do after rugby has often been raised because for every Ugo Monye or Martin Bayfield who lands a successful media job or stays within the game as a coach, there is another who is left on the outer not knowing where to go next and have not necessarily invested in the necessary qualifications.

The system of encouraging players to develop their game while undertaking education could lead to a sharp decline in the number of players left stranded after retirement and potentially then reduce the associated mental health problems that players have experienced post-playing days.

There is a financial fault in this proposed system. The levels of money involved in the NFL, NBA and other American leagues allow them to contribute monetarily to the universities that raise the best talent in the country.

This would mean it would either be beholden to universities to allow talented athletes in on scholarships off their own back or that clubs would need to be able to support players through university with little to no guarantee of payoff.

Forgoing all of this, it could still easily be that talented players who would not be able to afford university could not pursue that route - which is why a multi-layered system might be of use.

Alex Dombrandt is an example of how a university-fed draft system could benefit young players

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It may be that the nature of academies as they stand means that there has to be a split-entry system, which is why The Flanker proposes a two-draft system.

This doesn’t mean players get drafted twice, but there are two ways in through a draft system to ensure the talent spread across all teams continues at both levels.

The way forward could be a situation wherein players are drafted to club academies if they want to declare and go straight into rugby when they leave school, but then also gives a drafting option straight into first-team squads for those who have taken the higher education route.

This gives an option for those that cannot afford to pursue a university route or who academically would struggle to secure entry, meaning they still have a route into the game through the academy.

However, it would be smart for club academies to still encourage and support alternative part-time educational courses or apprenticeships (if the time-share can be managed) alongside their rugby development.

There would be a lot of hoops to jump through in terms of making such a system feasible, with the game possibly already developing to the point where a draft is just not a possibility without serious restructuring.

However, with incentives on offer for prospective players to give themselves more strings to their bow, as well as a more formalised progression system, it could be a benefit to a multi-layered draft system.

Against

The necessity of ring-fencing

This is the most current argument that enters into the potential discussion over a draft system, and it’s a big one.

By the nature of it, as discussed above, a draft is ordered to ensure the team that was bottom the year before gets top billing for the best emerging talent.

However, if the team that finishes bottom of the Premiership is relegated, then it plays havoc with the whole system.

The Premiership might have to be ring-fenced to make a draft workable - and where would that leave teams like Ealing Trailfinders?

Credit: Patrick Khachfe/​JMP/​Shutterstock

It sounds obvious enough to say the team that gets promoted would take the top draft pick, but take a situation like the current one in England where perennial European champions Saracens already boast more British and Irish Lions than you can shake a stick at.

If a team that good had been relegated for whatever reason and was coming back up with the squad Saracens have, giving them a first draft pick on top of that just feels wrong.

The impossibility of comparing the quality of a promoted side to the existing Premiership teams means that a draft order can only be fairly assembled with the same teams which played out the previous season, which sadly only leads to one place - ring-fencing.

We at The Flanker have already discussed ring-fencing previously here, and let us simply say that the potential effects not only on the Premiership but on Championship promotion hopefuls like Ealing Trailfinders make it something we would not enter into without seriously good reason.

The question of whether the implementation of a draft and the possibility for the equalisation of talent across the league would be a sufficient benefit to make ring-fencing a genuine option is a question left to the individual.

It weakens academies and puts a lot of pressure on universities

While the system that would ensure club academies would not be made redundant has been outlined above, there is no denying that a draft system encouraging players to take the university route would weaken their impact.

Academies are something most top clubs have honed and nurtured over a number of years, ensuring they are producing the kinds of players the club values and that can contribute to their on-field successes.

A draft system could mean fewer players coming through academy systems, meaning the facilities clubs have invested in and developed are potentially not producing the talent and output required.

What is more, allowing a post-university draft option puts a lot of pressure on university systems to deliver talent and development on a level that not many are currently set up to do.

The top sporting universities do have the infrastructure in place to develop elite rugby talent, and players have previously filtered through from these systems to the top level.

However, the problem is that the rugby programmes at most sporting universities are not currently at the level to develop the first-team-ready talent in the way that the American college system is.

Implementing a draft system would similarly require a large-scale upgrading of the university system to ensure better coaching and facilities across the country.

It would be an enormous undertaking that, while potentially revolutionary for the game in this country, is not currently feasible.

The counterpoint, as it is, is just to implore you to imagine how it could look if that was achieved and the differences it would make to the setup of the Gallagher Premiership and its clubs.

It can limit young players’ earning potential

Marcus Smith is already one of the biggest stars in the game - would a draft have stopped him from being paid his worth?

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It is well known that a rugby player’s career is a short enough one as it is.

Therefore, it cannot be a point of criticism that a player should take the opportunities to maximise their earning power while they are in the game.

That in its own way could become a stumbling block since the most talented young athletes in the game could find themselves unable to collect what they are worth immediately.

With the tightness of the salary cap in rugby as it currently is, it is hard to see a situation where any entrant into the Premiership through a draft would not see their initial contract capped at a certain point to ensure any club is not priced out of getting their top available choice in the yearly showcase.

However, if a young player comes through with a skillset worthy of a far greater wage, it is very possible that they might only last a year through their initial contract at the team that drafts them before bowing to a much greater offer elsewhere.

It would make a slight mockery of the system, for even though someone moving on from the team that drafted them or being cut is not unusual in America, the room they have to negotiate high wages with the best-drafted players means that financials are not a reason behind that.

Any system that prevents players from being paid what they are worth or what the market deems them capable of being paid, is going to be a flawed introduction to a game where young players can come through an academy and earn the best deal for themselves more organically.

What do you think? Could a draft system work in rugby or would it be a mistake? Let us know in the comments.