Gold Coast coach Guy McKenna has suggested both Greater Western Sydney and his own club should have been banned from poaching young AFL players.

McKenna's comments come after 20-year-old, 18-game Adelaide defender Phil Davis announced this week he will join the Giants next season.

The second Sydney club are also targeting other young guns, Melbourne midfielder Tom Scully and the Western Bulldogs' Callan Ward, with their uncontracted player recruiting concessions.

"Maybe there should have been a rule or a limit, like you had to spend five or six years at a footy club, or be over a certain age, a bit like the old veterans list," McKenna told Melbourne's Triple M radio.

"Because I think the uncontracted list was all to do with mature talent. So to go to target young kids ... I can't speak on behalf of Greater Western Sydney.

"It's done, they're the rules and you've got to apply them ... you try to manipulate them to best suit your footy side."

Most of Gold Coast's experienced recruits were older than the Giants' targets.

But if there had been a five-year rule in place, they would have missed out on poaching Jarrod Harbrow from the Western Bulldogs and Nathan Krakouer from Port Adelaide, as they had both been at their original clubs for just four seasons.

But McKenna said the Suns would soon face the other side of the recruiting battle, as they tried to keep a squad packed with talented young players together.

"It's the nature of the beast. We've been lucky enough to be on the good side of it last year.

"Next year and the year after we're going to be on the wrong side of it, because we've got a lot of good young talent up here."

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