How South Australia’s sporting women have led the way on the field in 2019
Another year closes in SA sport with women leading the way in the chase for glory in national leagues.
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Another (sporting) year passes … with South Australia’s image on the national league map at extremes in results, expectation and disappointment.
Can one word describe SA’s standing in Australian leagues in 2019?
Is it “pride” with the women’s teams? Or is the bigger picture demanding the term “challenged” – both on and off the field?
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And what will it take to prime SA’s sporting units for a return to the glory days of the late 1990s when there was an annual ritual to have King William Street become a carpet of confetti leading to the balcony at Adelaide Town Hall?
The roll call of SA’s performances on the national stage – as club teams rather than State sides – reads:
AFL
Crows (last title in 1998), 11th this season; Port Adelaide (2004), 10th.
For just the second time since SA became a two-team market in 1997, the Crows and Power missed finals across two consecutive seasons (after doing the same in 2010-11).
Adelaide, after accepting from an “external” review so many of the issues it denied for two years, starts a new chapter with an untried coach, Matthew Nicks.
Anything is possible.
Port Adelaide enters its 150th anniversary season needing to prove it can advance from “survival” (making up the numbers) to “thriving” in the big league.
AFLW
Adelaide (2019), champions
The Crows won the flag for the second time in three years in Australia’s fastest growing competition.
And the AFL thought SA was a wasteland for women’s football.
CRICKET
Strikers men (2017-18), seventh; women (none), runners-up
In Jason Gillespie, SA cricket has a coach blessed with immense wisdom from wide experience.
The women’s team, with its Kiwi imports, is rising.
But SA cricket remains the one sport still measured by national championships rather than national leagues.
The Redbacks (1996, last in 2018-19) recently broke a two-year drought in securing a four-day win.
So many questions linger, particularly on the structure of the sport in Adelaide.
BASKETBALL
36ers (2002), fifth; Lightning (2008), runners-up
What will it take – beyond the usual theme of “more money” – for basketball to find a new dynasty to follow Phil Smyth’s era in Adelaide?
The Lightning is a story against so much adversity that – to lean on an old thought – is the stuff for Hollywood movies.
All the script needs is a glorious ending.
SOCCER
United (2016), fourth
Here is a franchise – now working completely to the agenda of its Dutch owner – that highlights how SA sport needs more investment in infrastructure.
There will be no Commonwealth Games in Adelaide to answer that need.
Three of six FFA Cups give the Reds an admirable reputation.
BASEBALL
Bite, now Giants again (no title), sixth
New ownership from the Adelaide Football Club … is there an AFL club that has translated football expertise to another sport?
NETBALL
Thunderbirds (2013), seventh.
Is independence from a State association absorbed with the grassroots the answer … or just the path to new problems?
The off-field triumph of 2019 was SA hockey being part of a national league after winning public support and extraordinary financial backing from Rob Gerrard.
The Fire women’s team lived up to expectation with a semi-final appearance.
And onto 2020, an Olympic year with the Games returning to Tokyo.
King William Street will have a parade again for a new crew of Olympians.
But which SA national league team is destined to follow?