LaughingKookaburra wrote:cracka wrote:Not sure where to put this.
Just had a look at the 1st 2 rounds of all the grades & there have been some big wins/losses from div 7 up to even div 3, even taking away the Gaza & Elizabeth results.
Having never been involved in SAAFL/AdFL, from afar is doesn't look like promotion/relegation is working for making the lower grades even competitions. Is there another solution to the unevenness we're seeing that wouldn't involve clubs sandbagging.
How do you measure unevenness though? When you have 6-7x the clubs of most other leagues then it’s going to occur from time to time. Even though clubs like Elizabeth, Gaza, Portland ect are getting belted right now, they won flags not long ago or featured in 2nd or 3rd weeks of finals. You could go though most country comps in SA and name at least 20-25% of the clubs who haven’t featured in at least a second semi final in the last 12-15 years.
Maybe unevenness is the wrong word to use. To me as an outsider, I assumed that promotion/relegation was the way to avoid the big margins we've seen so far this year. Is it usually this bad & I've just missed it from previous years.
The only other SA league I know of that clubs can change divisions is the HFL, but that is on a voluntary basis if a club thinks it can compete in the higher division. As we've seen both Echunga & Nairne have won flags in both divisions.
I took up the challenge of going through all country leagues for the past 13 years or as long as Sportingpulse would go. I only looked at ladder positions at the end of the seasons, not who'd played in semi finals. For competitions of 10-9 teams I did top 5, 8-7 teams top 4, 6-5 teams top 3 & 4 team competitions were top 2 only. These are the clubs that haven't played finals in the past 12-13 years
Kapunda BLGFL
Murrayville MalleeFL - finished 4th in 2012 & 13 which was a final 4 of 6 team comp
Coober Pedy Far North FL
Jamestown/Peterborough Nthn Areas FL
Bridgewater HFL Div 1 - won a flag recently in Div 2
Sedan/Cambrai HFL Div 2 - won flags recently in RIFL
Callington HFL Div 2 - won flag with Bridgewater merge
Central Augusta Spencer Gulf FL
Wirrilla West Eyre FL
Cobdogla RIFL
Blanchetown/SR RIFL- pretty sure they won flag in disbanded Lower Murray FL not too long ago
I could only find the last 2 seasons for the KNTFL but did go through individual clubs records. Kybybolite is the only club I couldn't find having played finals recently.