Your opinion makes sense coming from a supporter of a club that doesn't have a history with league nor develop juniors, and no offence intended by that whatsoever.
But football clubs and leagues clubs in Sydney and QLD invest a lot of money into their junior development areas in the hope that these juniors turn into first grade footballers for them in the future. Clubs like Penrith, Saints, Tigers, Broncos, Eels, well pretty much all clubs go out to promote the game in their local area and encourage kids to take up league. The clubs that do that shouldn't be punished for doing so.
If you implement a draft system then why would clubs waste time and money investing in the junior system when they knowing any club has free pick at them.
Junior clubs dont have to have a relationship to a certain club to produce players. Look at English football, American football and AFL. Three different codes that have three different approaches to nuturing young talent for their own games.
In England local clubs develop their own players for their own benefits ie to compete in their own local leagues. The fact they're not alligned doesnt mean the kids dont play the game but there is no draft system in place. The clubs only take over development when they sign kids.
In the USA the Universities are the training grounds and they have their own competitions and their own financial reasons to becoming a success and they do have a draft system.
In AFL the junior development is done once again for the benefit of the local clubs and they do have a draft system in place to take the players into the professional arena.
But the over riding commonality is that the kids play the games and people train them and encourage them to partake regardless of who pays.
Even if there were a draft in league kids would still want to play because they would still want success. Clubs would still produce players as they'd want the success that attracts other kids to their organisation even if they werent directly linked to a club and were funded by the organisation overall.
But clubs also promote themselves in the community for other reasons than obtaining players. Not all kids who play the game make the grade. In fact, most fail. But almost everyone who plays or played the game follows the game and supports a team. Teams get revenue from support, so there is still a reason for them to get into the community and get involved with junior development and schools promoting the code and playing the code.
A draft shouldnt mean the end of junior development. It hasnt with any other code thats had one.
