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GREATER Western Sydney chairman Tony Shepherd says he would consider walking away from his post if the AFL made further changes to the recruiting and academy rules.

The Giants' access to talent in New South Wales has become the subject of great debate this week.

In the wake of the Giants' 75-point thrashing of Hawthorn last weekend, Collingwood president Eddie McGuire used his radio program to plead with the AFL to put a cap on the amount of young talent available to GWS through its academy system, in particular from the talent-rich Riverina area.

Shepherd told 3AW on Wednesday night that he would consider resigning if the rules were changed again.

"I would consider it," Shepherd said.

"I can't stand this constant changing of the rules.

"It just drives me nuts.

"We have to apologise every time we win a bloody game.

"I've had enough."

It's all quiet when Giants lose: Cameron



Giants CEO Dave Matthews said earlier on Wednesday that list concessions don't give the emerging club an unfair advantage.

A number of Victorian clubs are angry that the Giants are gaining access to talented youngsters in the traditional AFL heartland of the Riverina because they are being filtered into the club's academy and then developed in-house.

Under the concessions, the Giants – who have 22 first-round draft picks and six academy players on their list this season – are given first access to the leading players in the club's zone in the draft.

Matthews said the success of the academy systems were in the best interests of the competition.

"I think that's in the interest of the growth of the game in NSW and ACT that the Giants are playing the role, just like Collingwood and other clubs, to try to stimulate areas that have been under producing," Matthews told SEN.

"At the present time we're seeing players coming out of the Riverina and the Murray, which is fantastic, but those players are only ever going to get listed according to the bidding system."

The AFL introduced its new father-son and northern academies bidding system prior to last year's draft, which was designed to ensure clubs pay closer to market value for draftees.

Matthews said the club's list concessions "deepen the draft pool".

"It's good for the game that there's talent coming out of NSW – that's the overall objective," he said.

"I think what gets lost is there's a bidding system in place to make sure that any of the young talent coming through is listed at fair value.

"It's fairly simple for me; every time we get a NSW or Canberra boy onto our list it means that it effectively deepens the (draft) pool and frees up more Victorian (players) for Victorian clubs."

Sydney Swans defender Ted Richards also defended the northern academies, saying the club would have lost star youngster Isaac Heeney to rugby league if they had not been in place.

Heeney is one of the leading graduates out of the Swans' academy and an up and coming star of the competition.

"It's pretty biased to only view them as a feeder for the Swans or whatever team," Richards told RSN927.

"They're actually a great carrot for young kids to retain talent and stay in the AFL world when they're 15, 16 or 17.

"There's a reason why Isaac Heeney didn't go to the NRL and stayed with the AFL at the age of 15 and that's because of the academies."