Mark Bickley: Why Port or Adelaide SANFL flag could be catalyst for national reserves competition

Adelaide and Port have near full-strength lists and their SANFL teams are flying. Would a first state league flag be the catalyst to finally establish a national reserves competition, asks Mark Bickley.

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Is the SANFL competition about to face its toughest challenge: an AFL state league team winning the SANFL premiership?

With every player on the Crows’ AFL list bar Tom Doedee and Tom Lynch fit and available, the strength of Adelaide’s SANFL team is at an all-time high. With their win over West Adelaide on the weekend, their seventh for the year, the Crows are just percentage behind ladder leader Glenelg.

A quick look at the teams from the weekend shows an enormous disparity in talent and resources.

Twenty of Adelaide’s 21 players are full-time footballers. Making matters worse for the Bloods, they lost two of their best players, Will Snelling and John Noble, to AFL clubs in the mid-season draft, without compensation.

Power vice-captain Hamish Hartlett and Crows AFL regular Hugh Greenwood line up on each other earlier this season. Picture: Tom Huntley

Port Adelaide Magpies, with five wins so far this season, have not been as dominant as the Crows at state league level, but with the inclusion of Charlie Dixon, Ollie Wines and Hamish Hartlett on the weekend, proved too strong for an in-form Sturt.

Port Adelaide also has a rapidly improving injury list and fielded 17 players from its AFL roster. If this were to continue, a top-three finish could also beckon.

Coming off the back of a number of cracking SANFL grand finals, how would the fans react to one, or maybe both, of the AFL state league teams playing off for and winning the Thomas Seymour Hill Premiership Trophy?

The answer, I think, would be not very well.

From day one, there has been resentment from diehard SANFL fans of how their long-standing traditional competition has been compromised. The incursion of the two cashed-up AFL clubs, with different rules to abide by and different agendas to follow, flew in the face of what local footy fans saw as fair and reasonable.

Port's Charlie Dixon looks to handball under pressure from Sturt and former Power player Sam Colquhoun at Alberton Oval on Saturday. Picture: AAP Image/Dean Martin

The best-case scenario for the SANFL is to have the benefits the AFL clubs bring — the increased profile and coverage, extra home games and the Crows’ $400,000 annual contribution — without them actually winning any premierships.

It is a status quo that has so far remained intact. Port has been runner-up twice, the Crows have made it to a preliminary final.

Both will be serious challengers again in 2019.

There is an answer that would remove all the problems relating to Adelaide and Port sharing the SANFL competition: introduce a national AFL reserves competition.

At present there is disruption around the various state leagues due to the different strategies and structures each AFL club has adopted. The removal of the AFL presence from the local leagues would allow the competitions to again be uncompromised by the competing forces of a governing body who controls the purse strings, and the long-standing history of the state league competitions.

The idea for a national reserves competition is not new and has been seriously considered by the AFL for some time.

It would be a much fairer system having all teams competing on the same footing, particularly the NSW and Queensland teams who compete in the NEAFL, which falls well short of the traditional state leagues. With fan engagement on match day the aim of every AFL club, the thought of going to an AFL match early to watch the reserves would please most.

There is nothing more engaging to a true footy fan than watching the development of the clubs’ future stars. It is also great for the young players, playing in front of bigger crowds and on AFL grounds.

The cost appears to be the largest impediment but with one of the AFL’s major sponsors an airline and the benefit of economies of scale with the other travel expenses, this should not be insurmountable. Particularly given the opportunities for sponsorship and broadcasting rights.

There is no doubt there is an uneasiness between the AFL clubs and their SANFL rivals: the latter having to operate on a shoestring by comparison.

The ire is much more evident among the fans of the SANFL clubs, who despise the way the AFL clubs use their competition as a training academy, at the cost of the integrity of their much-loved competition.

The big fella came back and dobbed a handful in the SANFL over the weekend 🖐🏉

Go behind the scenes of Dicko's successful return to footy after 10 months on the sidelines 👇 pic.twitter.com/FtMMPjXrO1

— Port Adelaide FC (@PAFC) June 11, 2019

An SANFL premiership to Adelaide or Port could prove to be the catalyst to end this marriage of convenience and set all parties involved in a direction that more accurately aligns with their core business.

The Crows and the Power can focus on AFL premierships, on an equal footing with every other AFL club, and controlling the destiny of their young players without fear of compromising the competition they are playing in.

The SANFL can return to its charter of representing and being supported by the communities they are surrounded by while providing a pathway for talented youngsters from the area.