IF you take, you also have to give or have taken from you .... even when you want to keep a valued draftee destined to play at least 200 AFL games, the usual measuring mark of recruiting gurus.

Port Adelaide has locked away - against a significant vibe of the go-home factor - young defender (would-be midfielder) Miles Bergman until at least the end of the 2025 AFL season.

It continues a significant trend at Alberton. But - at a time of more and more adjustments to AFL list-management rules designed to engineer more player movement and assist with the impending entry of a team from Tasmania - the challenge to retain players is to reach its toughest test.

And there is a sense of pragmatism at Port Adelaide, as noted by recent remarks from both senior coach Ken Hinkley and football chief Chris Davies.

"The pull of family is real," says Hinkley of the go-home factor that is a double-edged sword in AFL recruiting.

"We got Jason Horne-Francis back (to family in South Australia just a year after the teenager left the SANFL as the No.1 draftee called to North Melbourne. And we lost Karl Amon (to Hawthorn) last year for the same reasons.

"We need to understand (the family factor) ... we are never going to be totally immune from that (go-home factor)."

Bergman, the first-round (No.14) pick in the 2019 national draft, had a considerable "flight risk" factor linked to his name considering his strong attachment to family in Melbourne (while father Ralph was a reserves player at Melbourne and St Kilda) - and to his close friends on the Sandringham peninsula of Melbourne suburbia. His want for the comfort of home, family and friends inevitably became more notable while suffering with COVID during the recent pandemic.

Family and friends are forever.

Football careers are short. And there is a new family at Port Adelaide, particularly with the father figure Hinkley has become to his players.

"He has meant so much; we have had a great relationship," Bergman says of Hinkley. "From the moment I have walked in the door, he has looked after me amazingly ... as has every other coach and staff at Port Adelaide. 

"I love Ken. We are really close ..."

Port Adelaide - as Tasmania will learn from the start with its AFL entry in 2028 - no longer is a team that represents a State with homegrown talent from its district. It is a club denied a local recruiting zone - as Port Adelaide once thrived upon with city lads from the LeFevre peninsula and country recruits from the Eyre peninsula - and compelled to build its squad by drafting, trading and coaxing in the free-agency market. Even Carlton today laments the loss of its rich recruiting territory at Ballarat.

In Season 2023, Port Adelaide's senior list (minus category B rookies) has just 15 South Australians - a Port Adelaide original in Scott Lycett, father-son draftees Jase Burgoyne and Jackson Mead, Horne-Francis, Riley Bonner, Ryan Burton, Trent Dumont, Orazio Fantasia, Hugh Jackson, Lachie Jones, captain Tom Jonas, Kyle Marshall, Jed McEntee, Connor Rozee and Tom Scully.

Lycett (West Coast), Burton (Hawthorn), Dumont (North Melbourne) and Fantasia (Essendon) came home from rival AFL clubs after being drafted to club's outside South Australia.

Along with Bergman, there are 17 Victorians - former captain Travis Boak, Zak Butters, deputy vice-captain Darcy Byrne-Jones, Tom Clurey, Willem Drew, Xavier Duursma, Francis Evans, Kane Farrell, Sam Hayes, Dan Houston, Ollie Lord, Trent McKenzie, Josh Sinn, Dante Visentini, Dylan Williams and Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines.

The Sandgropers from the West command six spots - Sam Powell-Pepper, Aliir Aliir, Mitch Georgiades, Jake Pasini and recent mid-season draftees Brynn Teakle and Quinton Narkle.

The "Allies" from Queensland, New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Tasmania are in four - Charlie Dixon, Todd Marshall, Junior Rioli and Tom McCallum.

South Australians are not the majority men in the Port Adelaide changerooms - just as Victorians were in the minority on the Melbourne Football Club list two decades ago. Such is the concept of a national completion built on recruiting rules with no boundaries drawn on a map - not even Tasmania (a reminder for all those who advocate State jumpers being worn in the AFL club competition).

To have this group - and a family-devoted player such as Bergman - find more than a "workplace" as a professional footballer at Alberton has left Hinkley and Davies with pride in the program they have built at Port Adelaide.

"It is just an outstanding result for our football club when you consistently see young people from interstate want to stay at Port Adelaide," Hinkley says. "It says a lot around what Port Adelaide stands for - culturally and by its values.

Davies adds: "Reassuring for us is our record of providing an environment where players become the best they can be ... and they help the team become better. History says we keep the vast majority of the players we want."

Not since 2012 when Ben Jacobs, the No. 16 pick in the 2010 national draft, left Port Adelaide - after serving his mandatory start-up, two-year contract - has there been a concern at Alberton on retention of non-South Australian recruits. And it is worth keeping in mind that 2012 was the darkest hour of Port Adelaide's AFL timeline.

Travis Boak did not leave for Geelong, even after the Victorian club sent its sales team to his front door with a considerable "come home" pitch.

Ollie Wines has not gone to Carlton to extend a family tradition at that club.

And many other non-South Australians have signed contract extensions to stay at Alberton, giving meaningful substance to the legacy left by Jackson Trengove. He notably rolled up his sleeves to be part of the Port Adelaide revival a decade ago when it would have been easier to defect.

There have been exits - as Hinkley notes with Amon and history records moves from Alberton with Nick Stevens, Shaun Burgoyne, free agents Troy Chaplin and Danyle Pearce, Jared Polec after he was lured home from Brisbane, Jasper Pittard, Jarman Impey with his family reasons and Jacobs. Even Trengove finally took up an offer he could not refuse (nor get elsewhere) with free agency to the Western Bulldogs.

There have been forced departures, such as club champion Chad Wingard to Hawthorn.

And - after the notable reluctance of South Australian draftee Hamish Hartlett to be traded - the foresight of Port Adelaide list manager Jason Cripps on the need to rebalance player movement in the free-agency era is coming to be. After flagging the need in 2018 to allow clubs to trade contracted players without their consent, the AFL is opening this path.

Five years ago Cripps said: "I have no problem with players who are contracted (and) testing the market (as early as a year before the contract expires). But we need to get to the position where clubs can trade players who are contracted - and trade them to their choice of club; not always have the choice decided by the player.

"If we are going to continue down the path with free agency - and reduce (from eight years) when a player becomes eligible for free agency, the power balance needs to move back to the clubs. The power should be with the club in trading contracted players."

The "give and take" storyline of AFL recruiting is definitely to change. 

The "go-home factor" always will be there.

And just as Hinkley and Davies are learning they cannot always take without having something taken from them, the fan bases will find they too need to reluctantly adjust. After all, we are in a very different landscape to the 1970s when the great Russell Ebert had to wait for club boss Bob McLean to tell the four-time Magarey Medallist if he was to get a new contract as a player - and how much (if anything at all) would be added to the remuneration on the salary clause.

Now many players are telling clubs if they will take up a new contract - and how much they expect or will demand as a salary. Free agency after eight seasons has given the players even more power.

No wonder Cripps wants the same power commanded by list managers and recruiting bosses in other professional sports, in particular those in the US where contracted players are regularly traded.

ON REVIEW: BYE bye to the elongated bye of the 2023 home-and-away fixture leaving AFL House much to think about for next year's program ... and the high-performance teams much to re-assess considering results on resuming from the mid-season break.

The final count on the much-noted record of teams coming off the bye is: 4-10, a significant distortion in a competition built on platforms of equality.

After the count was at 0-9, the Western Bulldogs was first to break the drought for the bye teams in beating Fremantle at home , on Saturday.

Port Adelaide, on the road to the MCG, defied the curse of the bye - and a very resilient Essendon line-up - with Dan Houston's after-the-siren goal from outside 50 ... and Todd Marshall reliving the heroics of Steve Traynor in the 1965 SANFL semi-final against South Adelaide at Adelaide Oval where he held back the tide on the goal-line while Peter Mead launched his match-winning missile.

By Sunday night with the end of the four-week byes, the tale of the bye curse was:

WINNERS: Western Bulldogs against Fremantle; Port Adelaide; Carlton against Hawthorn; Greater Western Sydney against the higher-ranked Melbourne.

LOSERS: Brisbane to Hawthorn; Fremantle to Richmond; Geelong to Port Adelaide; Gold Coast to Carlton; Essendon to Fremantle; Hawthorn to Gold Coast; Melbourne to Geelong; West Coast to Sydney; Richmond to Brisbane; North Melbourne to Adelaide; 

Only two games involved a team coming off the bye playing another team off a bye. As tough as it is to put together the AFL fixture, with competing interests and contracts with venues and broadcasters, the challenge of keeping teams on the same footing should not be compromised.