The AFL has added a new representative game to its underage schedule next year, which it hopes will help boost the draft prospects of players from the poorly performed northern states.
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The league will pit a team of second-division players against the newly selected AIS-AFL Academy side in grand final week next year - possibly on grand final morning at Punt Road Oval - after just eight players from NSW, Queensland and the Northern Territory made their way onto primary or rookie lists in last month's drafts.
No players from the Northern Territory were drafted at all.
The game will be outlined to club list managers at a meeting with the AFL on Tuesday, as well as next year's expanded under-18 series.
The national championships will be played as a six-round home-and-away series that starts in the middle of May and ends in the first week of July.
