“Bloody hell, he’s sired a thoroughbred”.

I enjoyed reading today that Jack Silvagni will be wearing guernsey number 1 for the Carlton Football Club from 2017 onwards.

The Silvagni story at Carlton already takes some telling, and a very good football judge told me recently that Jack will add a few more of his own glorious chapters to this book.

I was told, “He just sees the game.”

A constant struggle in sport is managing the romance and folklore of our game against the need for competitive balance.

The key to the player rules relating to competitive balance is they seek to remove any strategic advantage that one club may enjoy over another. At its most fundamental level, the draft and the salary cap have been developed for this purpose.

To date, the draft and salary cap are recognised as the most effective tools in relation to distributing talent, reducing the historic and current advantages enjoyed by some clubs, be it power, wealth or location. Some thirty years on, whilst clearly not a perfect system, and the subject of regular intervention and compromise, both the salary cap and draft appear to be standing up to the many pressures exerted by highly competitive clubs looking to gain whatever advantage they can.

But both the draft and salary cap make for a decidedly transactional and unemotional means of managing the competition. On draft night, a club calls out a player’s name, and a relationship must then be formed. This often means dislocation of player from support networks, most significantly family structures.

It is also highly questionable whether it provides the best means of developing talent. Zoning for example, gave the clubs a vested interest in a geographic area, and with that, reward for uncovering and developing talent, safe in the knowledge that the investor club has first dibs. As a result, a pathway was created and athletes from a young age who understood that if they were ever good enough, their destiny and destination awaited. Relationships developed accordingly, often from their early teens.

The benefits of such a system have been acknowledged, with understandable controversy, in the developing football states with the establishment of academies for the GWS, Sydney, Brisbane and Gold Coast Football Clubs.

A zoning system also creates alignment between areas and clubs. Sons, brothers, cousins, friends, teammates would make their way to their zoned club which created a deep affiliation within the community. The remnants of the zoning system still exist today. Carlton is well supported in Bendigo, Melbourne in the Goulburn Valley and Essendon in the Wimmera.

My first role in football was recruiting players in the era of zoning when I was Recruiting Manager of the Melbourne Football Club. This meant a trip up the Hume Highway most weekends, building a strong affinity with the townships and their local leagues and clubs.

I got to know presidents, secretaries and coaches of terrific football clubs such as Shepparton, Shepparton United, Kyabram, Rochester and Tatura, who became Shep, United, Ky, Rochy and Tat. During this era, Melbourne was rewarded for their development efforts, with the likes of Garry Lyon (father Peter played for Hawthorn), Chris Connolly (father Barry played for Footscray) and Rodney Grinter coming from the club’s country zone, and David Neitz (father Alec played for St Kilda reserves) and David Schwarz from the metro area.

The game prides itself on its almost 160 year history and its many layers of folklore. The want to celebrate and recognise its heritage, including the playing heroes, also has the potential to compromise competitive balance, particularly with the father-son rule.

Few sports, if any, have a rule of this kind, but it has been part of our game since Ron Barassi signed with Melbourne in the early 1950s, to join the club of his father Ron Snr, a Premiership Demon killed in Tobruk in WWII when Ron was only four years of age.

Like the game, this rule keeps evolving, and for all of its complexities, it seems we have reached a comparatively fair balance with the recruiting club required to give up something in-line with the ‘commercial’ value of the player.

As a footy romantic, I love the father-son rule, but there is little doubt it has skewed competitive balance as it found its way to its current form.

The Cats in particular, have enjoyed extraordinary service from the likes of Gary Ablett, Tom Hawkins and Matthew Scarlett, without having to pay a heavy price in terms of forgone draft selections. It should be said however, that Ablett and Scarlett performed beyond the expectations that their junior careers, whilst highly promising, indicated. Hawkins was a steal at pick 41 when he may well have gone at first pick overall.

Personally, I have two strong memories of father-son players being recruited to clubs I was involved with.

The first is Matthew Richardson at Richmond, the son of 1967 Tiger Premiership player Alan ‘Bull’ Richardson.

At the age of 17, Matthew was developing at an extraordinary rate. All of sudden he was growing into his lanky body. With each game he played, his confidence grew and there appeared no limits to what he could do, or what he’d develop into.

Whilst he still looked like a leggy colt on the field, he was destined for Flemington, either Spring or Autumn. He was seriously quick and was adding power, but could also run all day. He had an engine, and it had plenty of gears...and turbo. He also had enigmatic talent. There was a game in the national underage championships (then Teal Cup) when he took 20 plus marks, and whilst some of his decision making and kicking was definitely a work in progress (and would remain so throughout his illustrious career), we could barely contain our excitement.

Of course, we were not alone in our interest. He was the talk of the recruiters, and no doubt some of the sneakiest and mischievous minds in the game were working on ways to get him to their club.

Matthew however, had made his mind up. He was playing for Richmond. As unlikely as it seemed, he was more excited than us. It was his dream to play for the Tigers, and all of a sudden it was his reality.

We quickly learned how committed he was. As part of the ‘wining and dining’ of the potential new recruit, and in response to the interest of other clubs (in particular Collingwood) we brought Matthew, Bull and family to Melbourne to watch the Tigers play at the MCG. We were thrashed. Non-competitive. This didn’t faze Richo. We wandered back to the Punt Road Oval after the game, he came into my office with his family and signed a contract, for a number far less than was probably on offer elsewhere, but the best the cash-strapped Tigers could muster.

At that time, all we were required to do was find a place for him on our list. We didn’t have to give up a draft pick. From memory, we were able to list 52 players, and Richo became player number 52.

There was every chance he would have been selected as the first pick in that year’s draft.

Matthew made his debut the following year against St Kilda, having just turned 18 and earlier than planned or expected, due in part to his very good form in the reserves but also our lack of quality at senior level.

I watched the game with my late father Alan, who was Secretary of Richmond when Bull Richardson was playing. About half way through the first quarter he turned to me and said, “The old Bull was a terrific player, but he was draught horse, but bloody hell, he’s sired a thoroughbred”.

It was the last game I watched with dad. He died a few weeks later.

My second memory was recruiting Jack Viney to the Melbourne Football Club.

I have particular fondness for Jack as I recruited his dad Todd from Sturt Football Club in Adelaide, and in the process got to know the family very well and we’ve remained good friends. Todd was recruited in the old ‘Form-Four’ VFL days, when you were able to sign two players each year from interstate.

The talented players could pick and choose, and Todd chose Melbourne ahead of clubs performing much better than the Demons during this period. The Vineys are a very loyal family, but also set high expectations of themselves and their club and we were able to convince them that Todd would be a key person in the club’s development - and we were on the up. He also developed a strong relationship with Demon champion Robbie Flower, who was instrumental in Todd’s decision to play for Melbourne.

In 1987, Todd’s first season, he would run out with Robbie onto the MCG for Robbie’s first final in what would be his last season, and Melbourne’s first final since 1964. Todd set the tone, with the first goal of the game and we had a big win against North Melbourne. We famously got within a goal of the Grand Final that year, losing to Hawthorn in the Preliminary Final with a Gary Buckenara kick after the siren.

So when it came time for Jack to make a choice, loyalty was a factor, but the club had show him that there was a strong and positive future, much as we had with Todd.

This was a challenge. Whilst showing some positive development, both club and team were struggling. It is worth remembering that in Jack’s growing years, Todd had coached successfully at Hawthorn, including the 2008 Premiership, and was now coaching in his home town of Adelaide.

Jack had no personal affinity with the club, he was just a kid when Todd was playing, probably barracking for Hawthorn if he was asked to name a club. He was however acutely aware of his father’s legacy at Melbourne and in an almost old-fashioned way, understood that it was important to carry this forward, and was prepared to trust that we were on-track to be a good footy club.

Jack was always an amazingly strong-willed person. This was apparent from the moment he could walk. As a result, he was a challenging parenting proposition for Megan and Todd, and we used to joke that one day he will either be on the front or back page of the paper.

Jack is a credit to his parents and himself, and will be a loved and admired Melbourne player who will leave nothing to chance from a personal and team perspective.

The Demons were fortunate to have his dad in Red and Blue, but perhaps even more blessed to have Jack doing what he does well at this key time in the club’s development.

Long live the father-son rule.