Emma Quayle wades through the proposed draft concessions to create a hypothetical playing list.

HOW does this sound? Matt Maguire takes a strong mark in defence, handballing quickly to the running Ricky Petterd. As teammate Sam Gilbert shepherds, Petterd's kick finds Jordan McMahon, who takes two bounces and boots the ball long towards the wing, where a pile of players pounce.

At the ball-up, David Armitage roves Ben Hudson's tap, digging the ball out to Alan Didak. Didak, with the help of a Mitch Hahn block, scoots away and delivers the ball long and high, into Nick Riewoldt's waiting arms.

The captain spills the mark, but never fear. Cyril Rioli, sitting patiently at his feet, scoops up the loose ball and slots a goal from the boundary line, with Matthew Kreuzer, Kurt Tippett and Russell Robertson first over to help celebrate.

Right now, the draft concessions proposed to help ease the Gold Coast and western Sydney sides into the competition are a big, confusing bunch of numbers. They'll stay that way for a while, with an AFL working party including two club chief executives, two football managers and a pair of recruiters to figure out what the new-market teams will need to be competitive, while not making the existing clubs suffer too much, or for too long. Not until the end of this year, when an initial bunch of young Queenslanders can opt out of the draft in the hope of playing closer to home (albeit after a two-year wait) will the new side have some faces attached to it.

But if it was all happening now, what would it mean? If the Gold Coasters had joined the competition this year - having been granted the current, proposed concessions over the past three years - who would be playing there? What might the new team look like? And what would the impact on existing clubs have been?

Let's start with the locals. At the moment, the Gold Coast team will be able to set up to 15 local teenagers aside this year, another 15 next year and five more ahead of the 2010 draft. If we go back in time to 2005, and do the same thing, you would be removing the likes of Courtenay Dempsey (draft pick No. 19), Wayde Mills (25), Sam Gilbert (33), Rhan Hooper (41) and Cheynee Stiller, a rookie, from other clubs' clutches. Last November, the locals might have been Brendan Whitecross (29) and Sam Reid (35) as well as pre-season draft pick John Williams and rookies James Mulligan and Rhys Magin.

The biggest, best group - the one that would have had other teams in tears - was in 2006. Eleven Queensland boys were chosen that year, including the very promising likes of Armitage (9), Shaun Hampson (17), Gavin Urquhart (21), Albert Proud (22), Petterd (30) and Tippett (32). Removing them would have pushed a heap of other players up the order and possibly turned the "super draft" into just a really good one.

It's important to remember, however, that while Queensland talent is on the rise, that was a special year. If we wind back a further three years, and imagine the Gold Coast club coming to life in 2005 (having raided the local stocks in 2002-04) it's hard to see anyone other than Daniel Pratt, Tom Williams, Luke McGuane, Andrew Raines and Brad Moran pushing for a place right now.

This year, the impact on other clubs won't be massive because there aren't any absolute standouts in the under-18 Queensland team. There are certainly a few promising players - and other, younger ones will doubtless emerge - but they're not coming in huge numbers. The other clubs might lose access to nine, 10 or 12 really good kids, over the three years, but not 35. That said, 15 years ago there were no kids coming out of Queensland. Perhaps the presence of the new club will, as is planned, boost participation numbers and, in time, with the initial concessions long gone, increase the amount and quality of talent emerging from there, hence improving future draft pools and making everyone, at every club, much happier.

At the end of last year, the 2008 Gold Coast team would have had first call on up to five Northern Territory boys. That's how Rioli has ended up in our team, as well as Marlon Motlop. They were the only NT boys drafted - Austin Wonaeamirri and Cameron Stokes were rookie-listed - so, again, how much of an advantage this is, or how much it will affect the existing clubs, will depend on what sort of talent they see there. Having those picks does allow them to speculate on some players, though.

The removal of up to 15 17-year-olds from the draft pool - a full year before the new team enters the league - is where the concessions would tear some depth from the subsequent draft, testing the country's depth of talent and forcing existing clubs to be a little creative, at least until the concessions have passed.

Going by the changing draft age (for the 2009 draft and beyond, nominating players will have to turn 17 by December 31 to be eligible), this proposed access would have allowed the 2008 Gold Coast team to have put Bryce Gibbs, a No. 1 pick from the 2007 draft pool (born in April, he would have been too young for the 2006 draft) aside for a year, as well as fellow first-rounders Ben Reid, Andrejs Everitt and James Sellar, and the likes of Chris Schmidt, Mark Austin, Kyle Reimers and Josh Hill. Had their recruiters shown some foresight - and being able to set so many players aside would encourage some risk-taking - they might have taken a chance on the improvement of Rhys Palmer, Robbie Tarrant, Matthew Lobbe, Tom Collier or Levi Greenwood. All were overlooked as 17-year-olds in the draft before being chosen last year, the first three in the first round.

Under the current proposal, the Gold Coast club would have dominated the first part of the 2007 draft, having been handed selections 1-5, 14, 15, 24 and 41. Remember that, with the changing age, the likes of Trent Cotchin, Cale Morton, Patrick Dangerfield and Brad Ebert, all first-13 picks, wouldn't have been there - in real terms, this is where the 2010 talent pool will be heavily drained, making the existing clubs trade up or search very hard for players, especially if, given the extra number of picks, they're calling names out into the 90s.

That said, the Gold Coast club will be free to trade some picks, hence allowing other teams back into the top part of the draft if its prepared to make an appropriate sacrifice. We've decided to draft, for the 2008 team, Kreuzer and Chris Masten with the first two picks. Pick No. 24 (considering all the Queenslanders, father-son selections and teenagers either already removed or too young under the age change) got us Chris Mayne (actually chosen at No. 40), while we chose Josh Smith at No. 41 (picked at 62). In some (extremely hypothetical) trading, we sent picks three and four to St Kilda, bringing Riewoldt home. We talked Collingwood into letting Didak loose, for picks five and 15, and we swapped No. 14 for Travis Johnstone.

Under the current concessions, the Gold Coast team can sign up to 12 uncontracted players, 10 plus the first two choices in the pre-season draft. We didn't look at Chris Judd because his goal was to get back to Melbourne. But looking back over who fell publicly out of contract last season - whether they re-signed or switched clubs - we've hypothetically lured local product Hahn home, as well as Hudson, Cameron Wood, McMahon, Maguire, Jude Bolton, Jared Brennan, Robertson and Mitch Morton. It's difficult to imagine how many players the new club will actually attract, and how good they'll be. They're going to need seasoned players, because they can't start out with an under-20 team, but so few top-notch players end up leaving their club these days.

There are plenty of questions and consequences - for new and old clubs - that the working party will sift through. Is it better for both new clubs to take all their start-up draft picks at once, or for them to be spread over four or six years? Would the existing clubs prefer for it all to happen at once, even if it makes their short-term pain greater?

Will the initial stress on the talent pool mean clubs are more inclined to give borderline 23-year-olds - who might otherwise have been delisted - an extra year or two, rather than take a speculative pick in the 90s or post-100? Will clubs be forced to take their minimum three picks in the affected years, or will that be dropped back to two? Will priority picks be scrapped, or still placed at the start of the draft? With the concessions coming - whatever their final form - does that mean Melbourne, Fremantle or even West Coast will put a very tempting player up for trade, in order to get their last really high pick in a while? And will the Gold Coast win a premiership in its first five years? That will depend on which players all those big, scary numbers end up turning in to.