Think team sizes should remain the same - 15 is about right, and if anything, reducing team sizes would actually increase inequality I think. It's when a good team gets a great week where it all comes together that the top teams come under threat.

Lists probably should remain the same (disagree with Hornsy proposal) with the possible exception that every team is permitted to draft some rookies. These rookies must have not played more than 15 games at the start of the season, and there can be a rookie draft twice during the year. Players can use these rookies to cover LTI players and thus field a team. Rookie draft can be 5 players for teams 13-18, 4 for 7-12, 3 for 1-6 at start of year, and 3 for 13-18, 2 for 7-12 and 1 for 1-6 at mid season. Only proviso is that rookies are not tied to the club for the next year and are automatically delisted (unless say they play a minimum of 10 games and then can be picked up by the team)

Draft picks - I'd be happy for any priority draft picks to be at the end of the first round and to be generous with this. Not sure I agree with any at the start of the first round.

Rucks - I don't mind Hornsy's suggestion. Or just make a 60% flat loading on OOP into the ruck to make it easier on the people doing the calculations. There's not too many non rucks who are over 195 cm.

Team entry - I think that each team should have the ability through the login page (or similar) to set up a default starting team. This saves from zeroes particularly with these bloody Thursday night matches. I think default team rather than rolling lockout will work better in this circumstance. Obviously the default team can be changed at any time. I know some would say this increases laziness, but for me it's more not realising when the Thursday game is on, and getting caught out with nothing when I'd prefer to have at least 1000 points on the park.

With regards rookies, maybe a few less per team, given that there's probably not that many players who have played <15 games. Or lift the rookie games limit to 25. If someone hasn't drafted these guys in their starting lists then I've got no issue with other players rookie'ing up some backups.

I like your suggestion for priority picks the most. I would be happy to see something along these lines implemented.

I would tweak it a little differently however, mostly to avoid 'tanking' (should that even exist). Just base it on average points scored for the rounds that a team was fielded, rather than final ladder position.

We have forfeit rules to penalise teams (by dropping their draft order at the next draft) which I think is enough and works OK.

Rather than an arbitrary per/cm bonus for OOP ruck players (arbitrary because nobody has selected their playing list to-date based around such a concept), I would prefer to 'encourage' less hoarding of actual playing rucks. How about mandatory delisting/trading of rucks such that when squads are cut down to 20 you can only have one ruckman who played 15 or more games from the previous year? This would spice up the value/competition for early draft picks and would keep the ruck FA pool more healthy (certainly than it currently is).

I am not in favour of your various suggestions to tinker with the length of playing lists. I think the mandatory delising period and subsequent draft should be the main (only?) mechanism to level the competition. And I feel fairly strongly it is better to add value to struggling team lists via priority picks than to have uneven lengths of team lists across the competition.

Lucas's rookie list suggestion has merit for all clubs, although I would cap games played at less than 15. Suggest 5 would be better. But I also wouldn't allow different length rookie lists to different clubs based on ladder position. Rather, a rookie list would give everyone the ability to 'stockpile' young players who could be taken with early draft picks to hopefully come through as a group when they arrive on the AFL scene in earnest. The more I think about this, the more I like.

Also agree with Lucas's team entry by default suggestion.

Oh, and on BGT's mid-2014 proposal, I do not favour such a significant structural change to the competition.

I draw a parallel with the basis for why we delist back to 20 each year - to keep the FA pool more healthy than just a bunch of 18-year olds and injured players.

I think everyone has just about always had at least 2 rucks in their squads. But not all rucks are equal and there are far more fringe-rucks on most lists than first-rucks at each AFL club.

I'm pretty cool with everything as is

A couple of my thoughts while I am around.

Team submission - we've had 3 years now and still have issues. I like the idea of having a 'default' team so at least there's points scored every week instead of walkovers, but still have some kind of penalty for non-submission. (can be overridden by commissioner due to exceptional circumstances)

1st offence - warning
2nd offence - final warning and deduction of 2 points
3rd offence (or 2 offences back to back) - coach fired

Keep 15 players. Rather than reducing that number, if you think coaches struggle to field DEFs and FWDs go to 3 DEF, 5 MID, 1 RUC, 3 FWD and 3 INT. Or even an option to nominate your own team structure somewhat. ie. a 'loose man' in defense you pick an extra defender, or if you want another onballer pick another MID. This idea is somewhat mitigated by the idea of the INT though.

I like the rookie list idea, purely because it would introduce a rookie draft and I like drafting. 4 rookies per team to bring team squads up to 30 sounds like a nice round number. With Johnson's suggestion on some kind of F/S bidding, I like it as I get attached to my players but I'm not sure if that's the answer to equalise the competition. Still, if coaches are keen enough on a rookie and make a decent bid then it could work.

Priority picks I don't mind as long as they are at the earliest the end of 1st round, and have some kind of long term stipulation (ie bottom 5 for 3 years).

Ruck idea, I don't have strong thoughts on any of the above suggestions, but I'll put another one up (kind of similar to the height % idea). What about being able to customise some player positioning? ie. AFL teams 2nd ruck that never gets positioned by VS (or have had it in the past and lost it), we just allocate them DPP. Examples would be Josh Jenkins, Rhys Stanley, Nathan Vardy, Charlie Dixon, Justin Westoff, Majak Daw, Ty Vickery, etc. We would all need to agree on a pre-approved list.

Thanks Hornsy for opening up this discussion and the ideas you nominated in your OP.

I would be happy to keep the field at 15 starters but i would still like to see a change in the positions, currently it is 4 Def, 4 Mid, 1 Ruck, 4 fwds and 2 IC.

I know ORFFL doesn't necessarily take its lead from SC but nevertheless onfield numbers have changed in SC since we started ORFFL to where the MID position is now substantially larger than the others. To this end while keeping the 15 starters i would like to see a field set up of 3 Def, 5 Mid, 1 Ruck, 3 fwd and 3 IC.

Allowing greater flexibility by increasing the I/C and increasing the mid spot which is easier to fill, i believe, can only help teams field a full squad each week.

I like your idea for a rookie draft and would vote in favour of your tiered system for this. For no other reason than to just give some of the lower placed teams a leg up and as you said allow them to hold onto players picked with early draft picks but yet to reach their potential.

Speaking for myself there is nothing more frustrating than not being able to field a full team each week through either LTI, non selection etc, nobody likes losing but there is nothing more that saps an enjoyment of a competition than going into game after game with sometimes 2 or 3 less players than your opponent week in week out.

To that end i suggest creating 2 IR (injured reserve) spots for each team. When one or two of your current listed players get injured or suspended for 3 or more weeks you should be able to stash them on IR and bring in a replacement from the FA list. Once the player returns to health and you want them to take the field you need to drop either the FA you brought in or another squad member to keep your list at the same number it was prior to the injury/suspension.

For example in my case when Leuey went down last year i could place him on IR and grab hopefully a ruck off FA to cover him for the time he is out without having to wait for either the PSD or end of year.

I wouldn't be in favor of priority picks at this early life of the ORFFL. Those teams in the middle would be disadvantaged to too much of an extent. There has not been a 'Melbourne'team of the ORFFL to date where we would need to implement priority picks yet. Perhaps in the future this will need to be looked at again.

If i can summarise, my initial suggestion stemmed from the frustration of not being able to field a full team one week to the next. Through bad drafting or just bad luck this skewed a lot of results. Trying to fix that was my concern. I hope my suggestions above offer some solution to this problem.

Yay, discussion. Would be nice to have this as a de-facto thread for everyone to say they're here and ready for '15. If someone isn't going to be around, easier to find another player now than right at draft time.

I can't flesh out as much as I'd like, but happy to expand at later date:

Always been happy with the suggestion of PP so constantly shit teams. You want these teams to get good, and the sooner the better. This league is no fun if it takes a decade to get a decent team, as it is it's more of a dynasty league with only 6 forced changes. An end of 1st Rd pick will go a long way to help change fortunes, and that club still has to nail the selection anyway.

Not interested in any other changes tbh, especially to team structure. No ruck man changes, every person and every league values players differently. Don't need to change because of choices made or gimmicks.

We have a squad size that allows for cover of every on-field position, it should be enough. It's down to luck (and injury history) if your player goes down, but everyone is faced with the same probability, I was hit hard last year too. But at the end of the day when it comes to kids or fringe players we all have to make a decision on the Close v Casboult's, Hocking v Hamilton's etc .

It's why I'm loathe to fully support a rookie list. If there's a maximum game requirement, how are these players going to help a team when there's an injury, they're the most inexperienced players to begin with and most likely NOT to be given game time?

Short term yes. You could trade one of them - leaving you with no real penalty though.

It would be an easier fix than screwing with a per cm bonus for OOP rucks.

First note: I'm not particularly fussed about changes or no changes, my ideas above are just suggestions. I won't lose any sleep if they don't go any further.

I agree with p_l that it's a bit of a dynasty thing at the moment, with only 6 forced changes per year.

I mostly want everyone to find it fun. Whatever changes can be made, should be to make the overall experience fun. For me it currently is fun. More fun would be better. I hope that others are having fun too though, and if they aren't I'm open to ways that we can tweak things to bring their enjoyment up a bit.