Had lunch with a board member of an SANFL club today and he mentioned that despite yesterdays result there are still changes afoot.
At the moment 4 clubs are on board and trying to gather more support but he mentioned that it probably wouldnt get pushed until next year.
A lot depends on the two sides forming an alliance with an amateur side but the proposal would limit the ammount of AFL listed players per game to 14, the others would then go to the ammateur side to play. Small tweak to finals eligibity aswell with 6 games required to qualify unless both sides are still in (like the weekend) As he said too late to get it up this year but will be pushing hard next year for it to be introduced in 2016. He didnt say which 4 clubs were currently onboard but obviously it would be good if all clubs jumped on.
There was also talk of the AFL sides being excluded from finals but a couple of clubs have knocked that on the head already
So push the problem onto the SAAFL? If 19 full time professional players are available like in the GF, a single SAAFL club would take on the additional 5. That would make a hell of a difference to the results of games at that level. Would be interesting to see what changes are actually made. Gee, never thought I'd agree with Rising Power on this sort of topic. This sounds like a bunch of effort to take it nowhere. Mandatory ammos (and why would it be ammos? Has Port already decided that its 'Academy side' is going to flee the SANFL reserves?) is a retrograde change as things sit now. Port Adelaide would have been as strong, or stronger, in the finals series with a 14-listed-player restriction. Take out Butcher and your 4 other 'worst' AFL-listed players and add in Bruggemann, Biemans, Robbie Young, Slattery, Johansen. The quality of the side isn't going to go down. The effort at that end needs to go into stopping an AFL club using its AFL-club resources to recruit top-up players—which has partially been fixed for the future, but the rule changes announced last month mean that Port has lots of motivation to hang on to its existing SANFL-listers, none of whom it's required to get rid of. And lots of motivation to keep 'em means lots of motivation to make it worth their while to stay. The SANFL needs to either enforce the $400 per game rule strictly, or change it to something that will be strictly enforced (for an example at the crazy opposite end of the spectrum, see the WAFL figures below!). 'Cos the situation with Summerton cf Slattery this year has been a joke.
SANFL clubs should focus most of their energies on talking to their contacts in AFL House to start making plans to get an AFL reserves competition up and going. Even leaving aside the SANFL, the current arrangements are a dog's breakfast which have made a mess of:
• the VFL—a top-level player, uninjured, waiting out the final quarter on the bench while his team gets overrun because he's hoping to play a game in another competition next week, makes a mockery of a grand final and is a spit in the face of the 23k who showed up to watch,
• the NEAFL—150 point margins are normal, AFL reserves sides have different rules from week to week depending on who their opponent is, and as far as I know any AFL-listed reserves players over any applicable cap for that opponent, don't play at all that weekend, and
• the WAFL—where the 'aligned' clubs get given 20+ players, paid a grand total of millions a year, for nothing, and then on top of that get a $182k salary cap as opposed to $280k for the stand-alone clubs who have to pay all of their own players!
For god's sake get these AFL clubs, all of which have the same purpose in running reserves sides, together in the one comp. Make arrangements for the kids from U/18 comps (who are 90% of what AFL club recruiters are interested in anyway) to play as top-ups, everyone's happy, and we can get on with our lives.
For the AFL to say, 'we can't afford it' would be the greatest joke of all time. I don't think it's the hulking financial behemoth of the NEAFL as a stand-alone entity that pays for teams to fly around between Canberra, Sydney, SE Qld, Darwin and occasionally Alice every week, all footy season, to play before family-and-friends crowds (apologies to NT Thunder who do sometimes crack 1000 at their home games).
I agree that the minimum number of games should be increased so you can't play the SANFL grannie just 'cos the AFL side dropped you at the tail end of the season after you'd played AFL all year; but that's minor.