Lions accuse Nth Melbourne-Tasmania of abusing ‘spirit’ of AFLW over signing spree
Brisbane Lions AFLW coach Craig Starcevich has accused new club North Melbourne-Tasmania of disrespecting the spirit of the competition during the 10-day expansion club signing period.
The signing period concluded on Monday and the Kangaroos landed a host of high-profile signings headed by league best and fairest winner Emma Kearney from the Western Bulldogs.
Two-time grand finalists Brisbane lost four players to the Kangaroos and Starcevich questioned the method of the recruiting team at Arden Street.
"Across the clubs we've all had some ownership about how this league works," the Lions coach told Grandstand AFL.
"There's a little bit there about respecting each others' space and not necessarily going in and pillaging each others' players and doing it with some ounce of integrity.
"It is the spirit of how we build this competition. I'm not sure North have been super with it to be honest."
Geelong will join North Melbourne-Tasmania in next year's competition before four more clubs enter the league in 2020.
Starcevich said the Kangaroos had been clinically courting their targets of the recruiting raid.
External Link: Brisbane Lions AFLW coach Craig Starcevich on recruiting
"They've been into some of the players for the best part of six months," he said.
"I'm not sure that sits with us that comfortably, even though the rules don't allow that, but if you abide by the rules you don't necessarily get where you want to go.
"You've got to do things a little bit underhanded at times to try and get where you want to get in terms of building your list so that's disappointing."
Brisbane chairman Andrew Wellington agreed the regulations surrounding the expansion of the AFLW could have been handled better.
"The AFL has done a fantastic job with women's football. It doesn't mean that they have got everything 100 per cent right," he said.
"It was very late in the day that they finalised the list rules which made it very hard for us to do what we needed to do to manage our list."
Both new AFLW clubs are entitled to recruit from the foundation eight clubs, but only four players in total from each existing club are allowed to be taken by either the Cats or Kangaroos.
Starcevich hopes the AFL addresses the rules around recruitment before Gold Coast, Richmond, St Kilda and West Coast build their player roster ahead of joining the 2020 season of AFLW.
"There's got to be a certain amount of movement with players that have had experience at AFLW, but at this point in time North Melbourne look like they are going to assemble 12 to 16 of those players," he said.
"It's probably a lesson learnt for next year when there's four new clubs that will take us up to 14 teams in the comp as to what is the right mechanism," he added.
"It can't just be a free-for-all."
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