Rebuilds taking too long for Hawthorn, North Melbourne and West Coast, Tasmania win a flag first, Gold Coast Academy players – MASHAHER

AFL greats are fearful for current strugglers Hawthorn, North Melbourne and West Coast, with one believing the Tasmania Devils – planning to enter the league in 2028 – will win a flag before them.

The Hawks and Kangaroos are languishing at 0-5 before their Round 6 encounter, with the Eagles finally getting on the board at home last weekend against fellow battlers Richmond, who are in the midst of an injury crisis.

It’s yet another bad season for the trio, who made up the bottom three in 2023, while the Kangaroo and Eagles were also the bottom two in 2022, with the Hawks a middling 13th.

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All three teams have been rebuilding for some time, the Eagles the least of the trio after trying to extend their premiership era and failing in the process, but it appears clear their climbs back up the ladder will take a while longer yet.

Speaking on Monday night’s edition of On the Couch, Melbourne great Garry Lyon was particularly concerned with Hawthorn, after their dour loss to Gold Coast on the weekend.

“Is this the worst time ever to be 0-5 and in the middle of a rebuild, as Hawthorn are right now?” Lyon asked on Fox Footy.

“Hawthorn, North Melbourne, West Coast, and probably the Tigers though they’ve got injury, they are about they’re about to go through a world of pain, and it’s going to be a hard way to see themselves out.

“They’re the second-youngest team, the second-least experienced team, only North were younger. They’re in this total rebuild and now we’re looking at the Gold Coast Suns and how they’re going about it with their Academy … it is just scary.

“They’ve got 14 Academy players on their list, 11 first-rounders on the weekend, this is just the Suns. Then you throw Sydney into the mix, Brisbane with the Ashcroft boys, Tasmania on the horizon – how do they get out of this?

“In the past, Geelong, their rebuild took about five years once they committed to it. Hawthorn’s took four – they had access to high picks, picks in the 20 were worth something, these days they get pushed out further and further, I’m petrified for these clubs.”

The Hawks, who haven’t played finals since 2018, took just one top-20 pick at the draft between 2011 and 2018, and haven’t exactly committed to a heavy rebuild by trading out players for picks.

In 2022 they had two top-20 picks, but only after trading up for Josh Weddle on the night; in 2023 they had just one, but matched a bid for Will McCabe at pick 19 via the father-son rule.

It all adds up to a list that’s still in desperate need of a talent injection but has struggled to receive it thanks to a large number of Academy and father-son picks scooping up top talents, pushing the Hawks down the order in the process.

“In four straight drafts the Hawks have been pushed down the order by academy and FS (father-son) picks,” the Herald Sun’s Jon Ralph tweeted on Monday.

“Could have had Mac Andrew, Logan McDonald, (Zane) Duursma, Bailey Humphrey. How do we at least find a system where clubs pay full tote odds when they match a bid, rather than get a bargain?”

It’s almost a repeat of the scenario that helped the Hawks dominate in the early and mid 2010s, according to Brisbane champion Jonathan Brown, when they hung up the top of the ladder amid the AFL’s expansion to 18 teams.

It led to him making a remarkably bold call about the Devils, who are hoping to enter the league in 2018.

“The great Hawthorn teams of 2012, 13, 14, 15, they capitalised on the fact that the teams down the bottom couldn’t catch up and couldn’t make ground on them, because that’s when Gold Coast and GWS (came in),” Brown said on Fox Footy.

“And granted, they got it done in September, but that certainly helped their case. When all the elite talent was getting farmed out to the Suns and the Giants.

“So that’s the challenge with Tasmania coming in. Mark my words, Tasmania will have all the concessions that GWS had, Gold Coast had, and maybe a bit more.

“The way it stands now, Tasmania are gonna win a premiership before Hawthorn.”

Lyon was struck by just how much talent Gold Coast is adding via its Academy.

While there was some frustration in the AFL world when the Suns easily matched four bids for Academy players in the first round of the 2023 draft, as it stands they can continue to do so, adding top young talents for a much cheaper price than they would pay if needing to draft them properly.

“There’s four All-Australians who were in the under-16 All-Australian team last year committed to the Gold Coast Academy already, add that into the mix as well. The Academy numbers are just crazy,” Lyon said.

“They had two staff in 2017, the Gold Coast. They’ve (now) got eight full time staff, four part timers up in North Queensland, 10 medical team, 50 volunteers helping out and a former AFL coach in Rhyce Shaw heading it up.

“OK, we’ve all gotta suck it up and get back to the draft at some stage, but jeez it’s a long way back.”