It always amazes me to hear people talking about a draft as if that's something that would be positive for the Tigers - I assume it's just because we've been crap for so long that people start to assume any other system would have to be better. Literally the one advantage this club should have going for it is a massive junior catchment area, which a draft would immediately render irrelevant. All a draft would mean is that we'd be competing with the bigger, richer clubs without any edge.
The reason why the AFL draft sort of works isn't the draft itself but the incredibly restrictive contracts players coming into the league are put under. You can't be an unrestricted free agent in the AFL until you have been at a club for eight years and even then if you're in the top earners on a list your current club has the right to match any offer. People might want the NRL to introduce similar rules but it's never going to happen - for one thing, severely restricting the earnings capabilities of young league players would just reopen the talent drain to union, in Australia or offshore. The AFL doesn't have this concern.
And despite all that, the AFL still has lousy clubs down at the bottom year after year and big names more or less perpetually at the top. Yes, when players force a trade to a preferred club their current club gets draft picks. But they just get used on more young talent that then leaves.
Basically, what would happen in a draft would be a turbocharged version of what happens now. Bad teams like the Tigers would get the best talent at 18 years old (assuming we don't make a balls up of our picks, which, hmm), would give it first grade experience up until more or less exactly the point at which it starts to really flourish... and then lose it to bigger teams. The difference would be that instead of having the chance to supplement your Galvins and Makasinis - top five draft picks - with a heap of 30-50 pick equivalents, all the lower picks go to the teams that are also doing the poaching.
Basically, building a system like Penrith or Canberra would become impossible because the talent all gets artificially shared round at 18. At this point there's no purpose for a club to invest in pathways and juniors. The NRL itself has no interest in long-term planning so grassroots rugby league would get starved of funding.
Basically, a draft would be terrible for the game and terrible for clubs like the Tigers. It's a dreadful idea and one that ought to be sealed in concrete and dropped in the ocean.