PINT and Banks with the big boys and a two-tiered men’s competition are good starts

The AFLNT needs to adjust its men’s competitions and tighten up suitability rules on life memberships and Hall of Famers

PINT’s green and gold shirts and Banks’ blue and white need to be on show in the Premier League:

IN an era where streamlining business hours, organisations and sporting competitions have taken precedence on everything we do in life, a glance at the top-heavy NTFL competition provides plenty of scope for change.

The senior men’s competitions are a case in point, where 28 sides fill three divisions – Premier League, Division 1 and Division 2.

Included in that conglomerate are sleeping giants PINT and Banks, who have dominated Division 1 and 2 since their inceptions.

For this writer the solution is staring us in the face. Implement a Premier League and a Reserves competition and consign Division 2 to history.

Promote PINT and Banks to the Premier League and make competition strugglers Tracy Village, Jabiru and University stand-alone clubs.

That will mean 10 sides in the Premier League and 12 in the Reserves, a greater flexibility with volunteers and coaching staff and minimal playing numbers.

Reducing playing lists will mean more competition for spots in starting line-ups and a big lift in standards, helped along by some adjustments to the frustrating and time consuming fly-in player rules and the dreaded points system.

The PINT and Banks solution has been a long time coming – 11 years almost to the day since the AFLNT signed off on the NTFL-TEAFA merger.

More than a decade on, the PINT-Banks rivalry has grown to the point where both clubs are well established throughout the competition.

PINT won the two women’s divisions this season – Premier League and Division 2 – and the second and third tier competitions in men’s football.

Banks has gone in another direction by focusing on junior sides in the under-12, U14 and U16 competitions, while still making the grand final in men’s Division 1 where their conquerors were – PINT.

If a week is a long time in football, 11 years is a lifetime and for PINT and Banks that time has arrived.

A 10-team Premier League, including the topsy-turvy Tiwi Bombers, will invigorate the Premier League, providing five games over a weekend and 11 in total when the Reserves competition is catered for.

Less umpires, less volunteers and a greater emphasis on winning will lift both grades, particularly with the green and gold stripes of PINT and blue-and-white Banks jumpers playing at the top level.

Suggestions from one club official I spoke to that PINT and Banks will take time to find their feet in the top grade are way off the mark.

The Greenants and the Bulldogs have established big recruiting networks in South Australia and Victoria and will be on an equal footing, if not slightly better, than some of the resident Premier League clubs.

But they must have junior sides associated with them. The overflow of young players from the former Division 2 would create room for U18 and U16 teams and associated women’s sides.

One sore point to emerge from the NTFL-TEAFA merger was awarding life membership of the NTFL to TEAFA footballers not involved in the Premier League.

It was done to reward footballers from the former Sunday competition for their services to the game.

But for long-serving players involved in the NTFL Reserves competition, it was a slap in the face for the effort they had put in.

Creating two tiers of competition would eliminate that argument to a degree, with University, Tracy Village and Jabiru left to carry the baton in the lower grades.

The winds of change have arrived at the doorstep of the Michael Long Centre, also known as the headquarters of the AFLNT.

Change is never readily accepted in any sport, let alone an NTFL competition already shaken up with a book on By-Laws even the man with the beard, a robe and a pair of sandals would find hard to comprehend.