Instead of simply going in order, last to first, over the course of several rounds as the four major North American team sports do, Australian Rules Football takes that format and adds two important and sometimes controversial possibilities:
1. If you have trained a youngster in one of your "academies" (think prep school for footy, run by the AFL clubs, especially outside of Melbourne), you get to reserve that young man regardless of where you draft. So, if you have a top prospect who you've trained, and he's considered the second or third best player in the draft...you can reserve him at wherever you draft: 10th, 14th, whatever. Nice deal if you can get it.
2. The other advantage is more colloquial: If there's a young man in the draft who's the son of one of your (former) players, you get to reserve that player in the same way. That's a really cool way to preserve the long traditions of many of the clubs who've been around for a while - there have even been three-generation players on some of the Melbourne clubs!
However, you can understand some of the objections that teams might have if certain teams are getting players too "cheaply", and the AFL is designing a system to evaluate and compensate teams a little more evenly.
(By the way, the site this comes from, AFL.com.au, is an outstanding source of unbiased information on the game. Amazingly, it's a standalone arm of the AFL that has NO TROUBLE at ALL criticizing the hand that feeds it, and it's still got access to everything it needs to provide in-depth coverage of the sport like the NFL does.
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