How the Magpies-Power merger spelt the end for Port Adelaide as SA’s greatest AFL talent factory

Port Adelaide’s looming SANFL exit after 146 years has overshadowed the fact that the junior Magpies were long ago killed off and replaced as South Australia’s No.1 AFL Draft production line, writes SHANNON GILL.

The Port Adelaide Magpies were the most prolific producers of AFL draftees in South Australia before their junior pathway was shut down.

Port Adelaide’s possible departure from the SANFL after 146 years will be a massive blow to South Australian football tradition. But the untold story behind its gradual withdrawal from SANFL activities could be the shutting down of South Australia’s great AFL talent factory.

The Port Adelaide Magpies SANFL team was the biggest provider of South Australian draft talent to the AFL, even after the Power’s entry into the AFL in 1997.

A CODE Sports study of 30 years of AFL National Drafts has found that Port Adelaide Magpies provided 48 draft picks to AFL level.

Of those picks, 43.75 per cent (21) reached 100 games in AFL colours, giving Port Magpies the greatest strike rate of any club or pathway program in Australia that has produced 20 or more draft picks over the past three decades.

Port Adelaide Magpie Clive Waterhouse was the first pick in the 1995 AFL National Draft.

That ability to produce AFL talent was never more evident than in 2000, when its four alumni drafted were Alan Didak (Pick 4), Shaun Burgoyne (12), Scott Thompson (16) and Graham Johncock (67).

The group produced 1,160 games, five premierships, three best and fairests and four All- Australian nods, making it arguably the greatest single-year club contribution in draft history.

But it all ended in 2013.

As part of the formal merger agreement of the AFL Power franchise with the Magpies SANFL operations, Port Adelaide had to discontinue its SANFL junior talent squads for 2015 as its SANFL team became a virtual AFL reserves team.

There have been no draft picks out of Port Adelaide since 2014 and its junior zoning areas were redistributed.

The main beneficiary of this has been Woodville-West Torrens, which assumed Port’s entire metropolitan zone and has become the primary producer of AFL talent ever since.

The Eagles have notched up 15 AFL draftees since Port’s withdrawal, racing to the top of the ladder for draft pick numbers from South Australian teams over the past 30 years, with 60 AFL graduates.

The pride of South Australia

South Australians like to see themselves as the true challengers to Victorian football arrogance and with state of origin football gone the way of the dodo, draft pick talent may be the most tangible measure.

The good news for Croweaters is that they sit in second place nationally for draftees over the past 30 years, with 17.83 per cent of picks.

They are only marginally ahead of West Australia (16.44 per cent) but in relative terms, they are punching above their weight.

At the 2021 census, South Australia (population 1.78 million) had almost one million less people in its development pool compared to WA (2.67 million).

South heading North?

At the wrong end of the SANFL success scale is South Adelaide.

The Panthers’ last SANFL premiership was in 1964, one of only three successes since the turn of the 20th century, and their talent record is not much better

Since 1993, the club has produced only 25 AFL National Draft picks and just five 100-game AFL players.

But there is some light on the horizon.

Jason Horne-Francis was drafted from South Adelaide in 2021. Picture: Mark Brake

The club shifted its base to the City of Onkaparinga growth corridor in the 1990s and the council expects the population of its region to grow by more than 40,000 between 2016 and 2036.

The region’s growth is starting to pay dividends. Over the past three years, the Panthers have produced eight draftees, the most of any South Australian club; including budding superstar and 2021 No.1 pick Jason Horne-Francis, and Collingwood premiership player Beau McCreery.

And while South Adelaide looks to move up the rankings, one can’t help but wonder what an independent and functional Port Magpies with 153 years of history and mystique (not to mention 36 SANFL premierships) could be contributing to the talent pathway given it was the leader for so long.

The CODE Sports study takes in all players selected at a National Draft from outside of the AFL onto a senior AFL list starting with 1993. This includes father-son, academy and zone selections, as well as players drafted through zone picks for expansion teams. It does not include players drafted from other AFL team lists, picked in pre-season drafts, rookie drafts or elevated from rookie lists.

Originally published as How the Magpies-Power merger spelt the end for Port Adelaide as SA’s greatest AFL talent factory