WAFL vs SANFL vs VFL - which league is strongest?

[glengowan]

They'd all be fairly similar on-field I imagine, but the SANFL has a stronger tradition, more people that follow and support, and still get the 40k Grand Finals.

AFL listed doesn't necessarily mean a better player than non-AFL listed.

Thinking back to when players were mini-drafted out to SANFL clubs and there weren't Reserves teams in the SANFL - you'd get lucky if you had a best 22 player coming back to play SANFL, they would generally be a class above. A fringe AFL player could often be at the top level, especially if they were experienced at State league level. Then if you got some games from a young gun on the way up, they were often very handy too. Often there were some playing SANFL Reserves level too and never made it out of there.

We've seen in the last 10 years, a full strength AFL Reserves team is pretty hard to beat, but none have been able to win an SANFL premiership. When push comes to shove (finals) we've seen the SANFL sides come out on top over the AFL Reserves teams.

And the argument of under-strength top up players is nonsense. The decent, seasoned players, don't want to be top-up players. We saw through the 2000's, many non-AFL VFL players come over to the SANFL and forge very good state league careers for themselves.

 

[glengowan]

How do they replace Port though?
Do they create a new entity called Port Adelaide and call them the Magpies?

This is what happened originally when Port joined the AFL. It worked well in terms of the Magpies still having a zone and still being a genuine SANFL club, separate to the Power. Because they were genuine, there was still decent support. There wasn't enough sponsorship/support for the two clubs to run as separate entities though.

The Power struggled financially in the AFL and the Port Magpies owned a hotel. A merger took place off-field (one club) so the Power could get hold of the hotel and sure up the finances. The SANFL had a mini-draft system for AFL listed players, but the Power started pulling those players back to the Magpies, prior to the entry of their Reserves team. Once the Reserves teams came in, that was the end of the Magpies, besides the uniform they wore. No more juniors etc. Their metro and country zones were given up (Eagles took a large majority of their metro zone/Norwood took a large majority of their Eyre Peninsula country zone). There is hardly any support for the Magpies as a Reserves team now. Same as the Crows. Same as any Reserves team in any competition.

The SANFL won't miss them. It's been a slow burn. The Port Magpies of today aren't the same Port Magpies of the late 90's/2000's, and certainly aren't the same Port Magpies as prior to 1997.

There is no need to replace the Power and Crows Reserves. An 8 team SANFL competition will work fine. All are established clubs with strong links to their country zones.

I think most SANFL supporters, post-Crows, would've preferred the SANFL be without the AFL Reserves teams in 2014 when they entered.