Future of the SANFL

[topsywaldron]

[stan]

Dion Hayman may well be right, but at the moment this is the landscape. I'm not sure its all doom and gloom at the moment. The AFL teams are strong and do have minimal injuries, but its not even the cold depths of winter yet, so lets not get too carried away.

[SimonH]

another issue - if you have a full reserves comp, do you expand the lists? do you still have topup players? to me it would make more sense to extend lists to maybe 50-55, which then brings about more costs etc. possibly could be offset by increased broadcasting of those games. but i doubt it.

55 person lists (and that would be the minimum to almost-guarantee that 2 sides could be formed every week with only minimal & occasional top-ups) would be a very bad thing for the SANFL. Lists currently top out at 44 (plus international rookies, basketballers and weird stuff). Those extra 11 players, per club, i.e. 198 players extra on AFL lists would come from somewhere. No prizes for guessing where.

A better solution for the SANFL would be the for the AFL reserves comp to be established on similar list sizes to now, and continue to move top-ups in the direction that most AFL teams are going anyway, i.e. a testing ground for young players. Because it's not a massive priority for AFL clubs whether their reserves win ('winning culture' yadda yadda notwithstanding), and it's much more about identifying and developing talent, they will be much more interested in having a look at potential draftees (who are kids), rather than paying coin to have say Kieran McGuinness or Brett Eddy playing for their reserves side. One 'leadership player' is neither here nor there in the grand scheme. The greatest demand is for the U/18s, while the draft age remains as it is—and so the simplest model would be that each SA AFL club is allocated 4 U/18 SANFL clubs (there will only be 8 in total: Port Adelaide has, in a bargain it may come to sorely regret, signed away its U/18 zones forever from 2015 on), from whom it picks its weekly top-ups. Whenever not topping up an AFL reserves side, SA juniors continue as they were, i.e. they continue to 'belong' to their SANFL club unless and until being drafted. The rules of the AFL may need to be changed to accommodate this—otherwise, they could just go with the 'Rafferty's rules, gather left-over bits & pieces from country leagues, ammos etc' model, ditching the ill-conceived 'hey, SANFL clubs, can you loan us some spare over-18 players?' experiment that the Crows have tried in 2014.

Either way, the SANFL gets its soul back, the AFL clubs get their development league, and the SANFL's quality doesn't fall away dramatically either.

[bennymacca]

Good post. The problem is, if you are a gun U18 then you might already be playing league, and what happens to that player? Does it continue with the current system where that player can be kept by the sanfl club?

[johntheclaret]

Have you assessed the posters? It may be that there are multiple opinions being expressed by multiple people.

It's multiple posters with similar opinions. Those who dare buck the trend are some sort of traitor or idiotic.

I don't agree with that. Rational, reasoned debate is one thing. Sledging is another and that is coming from both sides of the fence unfortunately

[Tech1]

Not surprisingly that no other clubs supporters think that this is fair except for most port people but really what do you expect, why wouldn't they want an unfair advantage, every club would if they where given the chance to and have nobody else do anything about it. The problem is with the people running the SANFL. The funny thing is every clubs got a vote for both the Crows and the Power reserves didn't they? I'm sure at the end of the year the gutless people running this league and the clubs who voted this in, including mine, will roll over when push comes to shove. I'd love to see that changes made, like more restrictions on the afl reserves, more money being provided by the afl clubs to play in our league and a higher salary cap but i can't see it happening, it just makes too much sense and that's not what the league directors are all about.

[heater31]

Does the VFL still have restrictions on the amount of AFL listed players in the match day squads? Maybe we need to do the same.....

[SimonH]

Good post. The problem is, if you are a gun U18 then you might already be playing league, and what happens to that player? Does it continue with the current system where that player can be kept by the sanfl club?

There would need to be a gentlemans' agreement that the AFL clubs would not pluck U/18s who are being selected for the SANFL league team (but could take those who would have been selected in SANFL ressies).

There'd be some scope for a bit of politics around this issue, but it's only on average maybe 3–5 players a year who'd be affected, whereas the scope for politics was much greater when 20–35 AFL listed players played for SANFL clubs each year, and (even with the odd flare-up) people managed to muddle through. Regardless of any arguments that might be held about the standard of an AFL ressies comp v the SANFL, you'd expect that AFL clubs would recognise that a full year at SANFL league level is going to be better for a v talented 17yo's development, rather than being ping-ponged in and out of an AFL ressies side.

[smac]

Gentleman's agreements are not welcome. There are no gentleman on the commission.

Sent from my GT-I9300T using Tapatalk

[Jim05]

Does the VFL still have restrictions on the amount of AFL listed players in the match day squads? Maybe we need to do the same.....

No, that finished in 2010 or 2011 for memory.
Used to only apply when a stand alone VFL side played an AFL affiliated side. The AFL sides could only pick 12 AFL listed players in the games against stand alone sides

[SimonH]

Does the VFL still have restrictions on the amount of AFL listed players in the match day squads? Maybe we need to do the same.....

Nope, now it's resembling a seconds comp for Victorian AFL clubs it's open slather in the minor round. Still convoluted rules on finals eligibility.

The Sydney Swans reserves have always been too strong for the comps they've played in, so have had a labyrinthine set of restrictions over the years, most recently 14 players when playing non-AFL clubs. Still mostly way too strong, although their comp isn't up to SANFL level so it's not an apples-with-apples comparison.

By the way, looking at that linked article, in 2013 the Giants reserves had capped 3 matches in a row of 100+ point victories, with a 192 point humiliation of their opponents. Guess where the Giants' reserves were at the pointy end of the season? On holidays.

[StrayDog]

Does the VFL still have restrictions on the amount of AFL listed players in the match day squads? Maybe we need to do the same.....

Nope, now it's resembling a seconds comp for Victorian AFL clubs it's open slather in the minor round.

Yeah, and like Jim05 said the "12/10" rule ended a few years ago for the "affilliated" clubs.

Footscray (for the so called "Western" Bulldogs), Richmond and Essendon recently dropping their VFL affilliations and joining Geelong, Collingwood and Carlton (as the "Northern Blues", once Preston) as standalone reserves sides. Add five VFA/L original or re-claimed stand-alones, three dedicated affiliations and one split affiliation.

In living memory a once proud alternative to the V/AFL. Now, more than ever, a dogs' breakfast.

[RB]

you'd expect that AFL clubs would recognise that a full year at SANFL league level is going to be better for a v talented 17yo's development, rather than being ping-ponged in and out of an AFL ressies side.

Doubt it. If they thought playing league football against men was better for their development, they wouldn't remove guys like Jimmy Toumpas or James Aish from the league side and send them to play in the national under 18s comp.

[SANFLnut]

Near enough to 20,000 people attending 2 games today.

Bottom and winless SANFL side beat AFL reserves side.

Future of competition looks Ok.

Once Port have a proper set up like the Crows then this comp will be stronger.