Preliminary Final: Port v South - Sunday 14 September @ Adelaide Oval

Won't have me complaining about the results.

I think Adelaide's results will speak for themselves next year as well.

The AFC didn't have the benefit of piggy backing on an already established Club structure and have had to create their own. Results clearly improved as the year went on in the SANFL, and I expect both SANFL & AFL sides will be greatly improved overall in 2015.

There are obviously benefits in having your players in the same team, but there can also be drawbacks.

Let's presume you get injuries and you've got 12 listed players playing with 9 much lesser standard players.  Cohesion and structure can quickly go out the window and the listed players start having to compensate and second-guess the others.

Port also won a premiership under the old system and West Coast won more than one.

We'll have to wait and see.

Lee wrote:Port also won a premiership under the old system and West Coast won more than one.

Going by that theory:

Sydney have won 2
Geelong 3
Hawthorn 2
Collingwood 1
Brisbane 3

With reserves teams just off the top of my head since 2001.

So going by pure numbers that's 11 premierships to 2 in favour of teams with reserves outfits.

Good try, GN, but I refer you to the old truism:

"Lies, damned lies and statistics'

First, you have a cut off date of 2001. Even if we use that, you have 11 premierships from the approximately 200 teams that have Reserves in that period, about 1 in 20.

That stat will be less than or about the same as the non-Reserves teams if you go back just a few years.

Or, as you say, 11 premierships to 2 in that period when there were far more teams who had Reserves sides?

In other words, we can both use statistics to support our argument

As I see it the problem that the SANFL admin have is that they have created a problem that they have no capacity to be able to fix in a way that is fair and equal to anyone.

They cannot restrict Port and the Crows from playing in the finals because to do so would make the competition even more of a joke than it currently is. They can’t limit the number of professional players each side uses and it may well be that their entire sides will be mostly full time professional players each week.

The SANFL clubs have to be subject to a “Salary Cap” whilst the combined wages of the players they are playing against for Port or the Crows can be several times over that amount. By all means tell me what the point is of having a Salary Cap that is supposed to make all sides equal is, if it does not apply to all the sides competing in the SANFL competition?

Whichever direction you go, the SANFL competition is totally compromised. The sad thing is that if tomorrow they changed the name from SANFL to AFLSA and administrated the competition out of AFL House in Melbourne, would anyone really notice? I suspect not, such is the pathetic standard of the leadership of the SANFL and within the boards of several of its clubs at present.

Lee wrote:Good try, GN, but I refer you to the old truism:

"Lies, damned lies and statistics'  

First, you have a cut off date of 2001.  Even if we use that, you have 11 premierships from the approximately 200 teams that have Reserves in that period, about 1 in 20.

That stat will be less than or about the same as the non-Reserves teams if you go back just a few years.

Or, as you say, 11 premierships to 2 in that period when there were far more teams who had Reserves sides?

In other words, we can both use statistics to support our argument

Never has an SANFL side won the premiership without a reserves side in place. Irrefutable evidence to support my case.

I rest my case.

Booney, I can't argue with that.

I surrender

Gingernuts wrote:

Lee wrote:Port also won a premiership under the old system and West Coast won more than one.

Going by that theory:

Sydney have won 2
Geelong 3
Hawthorn 2
Collingwood 1
Brisbane 3

With reserves teams just off the top of my head since 2001.

So going by pure numbers that's 11 premierships to 2 in favour of teams with reserves outfits.

I don't think all of those premierships were won with 'pure' AFL Reserves sides, some of them were still VFL affiliates.

Ben W wrote:As I see it the problem that the SANFL admin have is that they have created a problem that they have no capacity to be able to fix in a way that is fair and equal to anyone.

They cannot restrict Port and the Crows from playing in the finals because to do so would make the competition even more of a joke than it currently is. They can’t limit the number of professional players each side uses and it may well be that their entire sides will be mostly full time professional players each week.

The SANFL clubs have to be subject to a “Salary Cap” whilst the combined wages of the players they are playing against for Port or the Crows can be several times over that amount.  By all means tell me what the point is of having a Salary Cap that is supposed to make all sides equal is, if it does not apply to all the sides competing in the SANFL competition?  

Whichever direction you go, the SANFL competition is totally compromised. The sad thing is that if tomorrow they changed the name from SANFL to AFLSA and administrated the competition out of AFL House in Melbourne, would anyone really notice? I suspect not, such is the pathetic standard of the leadership of the SANFL and within the boards of several of its clubs at present.

One of the main problems I think is that there's never been a coordinated approach to the game from the ground level up. The sport of Australian Rules is managed by multiple competing entities, rather than one united for the common cause (i.e. the good of the game).

Without a high level strategic approach and plan, you end up with cobbled together solutions like this.

I was one of many Sturt supporters who was unhappy that my club voted for the current system. But once I had the chance to discuss the decision with our directors, it became clear that, at our level, there was no real choice. All the big deals, the ones that involved the big money, had all been done and dusted, before it was even put to the SANFL clubs. The big money had spoken and it was take it or leave it. "Leaving" it meant going broke for a number of clubs. Not just Sturt. Some sooner, others later, but without the future income stream that was on the table, the competition would ultimately wither away. I know some people think that's an exaggeration, but it's not. As it is, though I still don't particularly like it, that threat has been averted, at least for the present. There will be, must be further changes and I've no doubt we'll continue to argue over them. But we'll reach another uneasy compromise, as we've done this time. And we'll have the occasional hard words when the emotion of football temporarily overcomes reality. I'm one of the really oldtimers here. My footy beginnings go back to the 1940s, but I'll never walk away from it and I'll always have my say. I've always been a realist and I'll die that way. Just scatter my ashes on the Unley Oval.

i haven't read all the posts as have to go back to work (will read later) but yesterday would have to be the first time i've seen South supporters outnumber Port supporters at a match between the two

countrycousin wrote:I was one of many Sturt supporters who was unhappy that my club voted for the current system. But once I had the chance to discuss the decision with our directors, it became clear that, at our level, there was no real choice. All the big deals, the ones that involved the big money, had all been done and dusted, before it was even put to the SANFL clubs. The big money had spoken and it was take it or leave it. "Leaving" it meant going broke for a number of clubs. Not just Sturt. Some sooner, others later, but without the future income stream that was on the table, the competition would ultimately wither away. I know some people think that's an exaggeration, but it's not. As it is, though I still don't particularly like it, that threat has been averted, at least for the present. There will be, must be further changes and I've no doubt we'll continue to argue over them. But we'll reach another uneasy compromise, as we've done this time. And we'll have the occasional hard words when the emotion of football temporarily overcomes reality. I'm one of the really oldtimers here. My footy beginnings go back to the 1940s, but I'll never walk away from it and I'll always have my say. I've always been a realist and I'll die that way. Just scatter my ashes on the Unley Oval.

I understand your view CC, but I cannot have it I am afraid.

If everyone voted no, then perhaps the sanfl would have been a much poorer competition and perhaps even reduce to the standard of saafl. But it would have remained an even, fair and equitable competition.
Are those not goals worth preserving all the same?

Clubs would have gone broke if they maintained the current salary cap. But who is to say that a more definitive system could not be brokered with the saafl over these things to make both leagues more sustainable.

Just maybe what would have arisen out of such a brave decision, may have made the competition more sustainable, albeit with a lesser standard.

As i said at the time, I would have taken that over this version any day.

The clubs have not either individually or collectively really looked very far into realistic alternative revenue streams in an organised way. Maybe they are now that pokie revenue continues to point to a diminishing cash pool.
But it is almost too little too late.

The decision to admit afl clubs seemed like the way forward to negate this to a reasonable extent, but in the long term I doubt it.
More should have been done to shore up the sanfl and its clubs, long before the Crows and Power wanted in.
It is all semantics I am afraid, but I still won't take the argument up the back door that this was inevitable or the only solution.

At the time when we needed brave and far thinking administrators in the sanfl, they weren't around.

if the AFL, a multi million dollar business was interested in Australian rules football they would have made the right decision & set up a true AFL reserves competition, however as mentioned it is a business & a business is to make money which is fine but that also means not setting up a reserves competition will save money & it is helped when state leagues & its clubs (majority of clubs) bend over to do so leaving the AFL not having to even think about it, how much harder would it be to put another 22 players on a plane when travelling ?

by the way having Port ''too strong'' or Adelaide ''not strong enough'' are equally wrong, if they are in the ''competition'' & qualify for finals then they should be entitled to play

fwiw, in my opinion & belief is the Port magpies of this year is NOT the team i grew up ''hating'' to me that team sadly doesn't exist anymore & is dead, even diehard Port blokes i know & in all likelyhood you've all seen them like Stuart the milky, have said to me when asked ''no this isn't the real magpies'' but as soon as the siren blows you wouldn't know the difference, they're all into the match straight away

bayman wrote:i haven't read all the posts as have to go back to work (will read later) but yesterday would have to be the first time i've seen South supporters outnumber Port supporters at a match between the two

Correct ! We did out number the "other"sides supporters yesterday.

We sit here disagreeing and typing away about the politics of the SANFL at the moment but the fact is this...yesterday my dreams and hopes of seeing a GF by my side was squashed by a side of professional full time football players. It was just heartbreaking to witness this yesterday and for someone who lives, breathes and loves my club it was completely devastating.

My grandfather was a property steward, my uncle was a property manager, my grandmother loved South and my mum loved them too !!! They are all gone.....only saw 1964...that's it !!

My mums last words on the night she passed away 8 years ago was she held my hand and said "stick with them as one day they will win a premiership"....to see that opportunity vanish yesterday due to the political BS that has come into the SANFL is heartbreaking.

We are on the right track but will we ever get that opportunity again ??? Maybe.......who knows.....

I looked into the South supporters eyes after the siren went and we were devastated beyond words......most had never seen a premiership or limited success. Did it mean that much to the Port players and supporters yesterday as much as it killed us South supporters hearts inside ?? I think NOT!!!

Least this year we gained that little bit of respect back......we just need to keep moving forward but it is hard with a competition that is bias and unfair !!!!