Power and Crows under-23 trial is a pointer to the AFLD in 2022 - and poses a challenge to the SANFL
Port Adelaide and the Crows will measure the depth of their AFL squads at Thebarton Oval on Saturday with an under-23 trial game that also is a pointer to the AFL’s future structure.
Michelangelo Rucci
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Port Adelaide and the Crows put their futures on display at Thebarton Oval on Saturday - and so does Australian football, in particular the AFL ... and, reluctantly, the SANFL.
The Power and Crows will have their under-23s play a “Future Showdown”, a week before the “Summer Showdown” at Port Pirie opens the JLT Community Series pre-season campaign for the two SA-based AFL clubs.
Those fans who do go to Thebarton - one of the most-missed SANFL grounds since the Eagles moved to Woodville Oval as part of the merger with the Warriors in 1991 - or watch the live streaming of the match will be gauging their club’s depth chart.
But they also will be getting an insight into the future structure of Australian football.
It is quite clear the AFL intends to pursue a national reserves competition. Port Adelaide president David Koch, speaking at his club’s annual meeting earlier this month, noted a second-tier national competition remains on the agenda at AFL House.
The target date is 2021-2022, as the AFL prepares to find even more money in a new broadcasting deal in an era when “live streaming” - as on offer from Thebarton Oval on Saturday - will mean as much as traditional free-to-air television.
This “reserves” competition is already branded as the D-League, “D” for development. The AFL is quickly using up the alphabet - AFLX, AFLW ... AFLD.
The D-League would deliver bigger squads at the 18 AFL clubs, open the door for second-tier national teams in Tasmania and the NT ... and have significant consequences in Adelaide.
At Alberton, it is the end of the Port Adelaide Magpies. Port Adelaide clearly cannot be the “Magpies” in the D-League - that image belongs to Collingwood. And Port Adelaide certainly cannot field a D-League Power reserves team and a Magpies SANFL league side in the State league. That is the end of the “prison bar” jumper.
Many SANFL traditionalists will cheer. They cannot stomach Port Adelaide and the Crows fielding their AFL reserves teams in the State league.
But whatever joy these diehards will find in re-establishing a State league that is uncompromised by AFL players must be tempered by noting where the SANFL will fit in the pecking order of Australian football.
No longer will the SANFL be the “second-best football competition in the land”. It will fall to the third tier.
And this poses considerable challenges for the SANFL and its eight traditional clubs.
There is the task of attracting sponsors, television coverage (in a space now further crowded by the AFLD) and players (who will believe their are better prospects of being drafted by working in the AFLD system rather than the SANFL).
That joy is seeing the back of the Crows and Power reserves might be short lived.
Thebarton Oval on Saturday is far more than just seeing which of the local AFL teams can expect a brighter future with its youth. It also is about the future of Australian football ... and the SANFL.
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