Recycled player

In the sport of Australian rules football, the term recycled player is used (mainly in the Australian Football League) to refer to senior players who, unwanted by their original club, continue a career at a second.

Recycled players are generally delisted by their club at the end of the season, and are then selected in the preseason draft by another. Alternatively, a recycled player is traded from his original club to a new club; since he is no longer wanted by his original club, his new clubs usually needs only to part with a fourth or fifth round draft selection, or another recycled player, to obtain him.

Recycled players have somewhat of a stigma attached to them, and it is considered that if they are seen to have played poorly at one club, they will not find things much better at another club. However, many recycled players work through this and go on to moderate success at their new clubs.

It is also often noted that recycled players will perform well in their first season at their new club, but poorly thereafter. It is theorised that players are eager to repay their new coaches' faith in the first season by working extremely hard, but that the reasons for their original delisting begin to become more apparent in the years that follow. An illustrative example is David Teague moved from the Kangaroos to Carlton in 2004, winning the best and fairest in that season; in 2005 he began to struggle, and in 2006 he played predominantly in the VFL.

The recycled player policy is a list management plan where the primary source of recruiting is through recycled AFL players, rather than younger players or state leagues. A recycled player policy is the opposite of a youth policy.

The most common reason for a recycled player policy is the impending closure of the "premiership window." If a good team is set to lose key players to retirement in the coming two years, they will often adopt a recycled player policy to make a final push to win a premiership. While the recycled players will not be expected to be long-term champions of the club, they will be expected to be better for the team in the immediate future than an eighteen-year-old draftee. The negative side effect of such a policy is that the team will often fall very quickly from the top eight to the bottom four after their window has completely closed.

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