Expansion of the SANFL post Port & Crows

[Tigerlaird]

So with Port confirming its intention to leave the SANFL in the near future and presumably the Crows reserves as well, the competition will be reduced to 8 teams, leaving two spaces to be filled.

Could the Eagles split and Woodville make a come back? A club from the Adelaide Footy League make the jump to SANFL? Or perhaps even an interstate side..

 

[MortlockWatcher]

Is there a need to expand? The WAFL had eight clubs playing 21 rounds for well over 60 years and that worked well.

 

[Tigerlaird]

Is there a need to expand? The WAFL had eight clubs playing 21 rounds for well over 60 years and that worked well.

Definitely is something up for debate.

 

[MortlockWatcher]

The problem the WAFL created for itself was to try and almost compete with the AFL after the Eagles went in.

By the early 1990s, they were pushing for the Goldfields, Geraldton and the South West to seek admission as a way of making the competition more attractive and try and arrest the attendance slide and to try and increase revenue. Eventually, a 'Kalgoorlie Miners' entry was submitted and voted upon and suffered a resounding defeat (7-1 from memory).

No-one else tried until the Mandurah FC tried later in the 90s and, with a number of sweeteners provided to the current clubs, got over the line. Peel Thunder entered in 1997 and didn't make the finals until 2014 - and only then when they were aligned to the Fremantle Dockers as its reserves team.

The players who had no ambitions to try and progress up the pathways towards the AFL would prefer to play for more money in the Peel league than play WAFL. If the Dockers joined a national reserves comp, Peel Thunder will be destined to slide down the ladder once again.

With the benefit of hindsight, none of the regional teams would have lasted as standalone entities into the long term as the corporate backing available when these clubs were mooted are not available now, plus the travel to and from Perth would have seen few players committed to the cause (Kalgoorlie is 593km away, Geraldton is 417km and Bunbury is 169km).

Broken Hill is closer to Adelaide than Kalgoorlie is to Perth, so you could imagine the logistical issues. There are only five clubs in the goldfields region - and the nearest club to them is 226km away in Southern Cross - so to support a WAFL club with league, reserves and colts would seriously affect the sustainability of the GFL.

SA being a smaller state may be able to handle it better but what options are there?
What country teams could cut the mustard? What are the implication for zones for SANFL clubs if a new metro club or two come in?

 

[jabba5114]

North east would want a team. Maybe go back to rumoured N.T merger. Could be the santfl

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[relapse]

North east would want a team. Maybe go back to rumoured N.T merger. Could be the santfl

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I don't think it would ever happen, but if the SANFL were absolutely set on expanding then Mount Barker would most probably the most obvious choice.

It's a rapidly growing area and the club would service the greater hills area, it would be the no-brainer and think that it would be financially successful.

As for a 2nd team, most probably you could argue that the NE suburbs is under represented in the SANFL, but the question would be is whether anyone would support it?

 

[jabba5114]

I don't think it would ever happen, but if the SANFL were absolutely set on expanding then Mount Barker would most probably the most obvious choice.

It's a rapidly growing area and the club would service the greater hills area, it would be the no-brainer and think that it would be financially successful.

As for a 2nd team, most probably you could argue that the NE suburbs is under represented in the SANFL, but the question would be is whether anyone would support it?

Yeah mt Barker could work. I do think north east could work . Enough suburbs and they are far enough away from central's and north. They have big clubs in the Adelaide footy league as well

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[Tandy]

Just came to ask about this exact topic. Mt Barker could make a good case. Especially with the ground and facilities they've got. Adding 2 existing teams into the SANFL could breath a bit of life into the league. It's imo the best state league in the country. So they'd make 8 teams work. But it could all add excitement and more interest.

 

[jabba5114]

Would kangaroo island work?

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[MortlockWatcher]

Barossa and Hills, perhaps.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

Yeah mt Barker could work. I do think north east could work . Enough suburbs and they are far enough away from central's and north. They have big clubs in the Adelaide footy league as well

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I wonder, would Tea Tree Gully and Modbury be willing to merge for a SANFL spot? Or do they hate each other too much for that to work?

 

[The Unforgiven]

I'd love to see Mt.Barker and a North East side replace Port and Adelaide.

 

[jabba5114]

I wonder, would Tea Tree Gully and Modbury be willing to merge for a SANFL spot? Or do they hate each other too much for that to work?

I don't know how much they hate each other. Probably would have to be in Modbury though as it's more recognisable

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[Johnny Bananas]

I don't know how much they hate each other. Probably would have to be in Modbury though as it's more recognisable

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By recognisable do you mean the ground or the name? Could always compromise by calling it Tea Tree Gully but playing at Modbury.

 

[jabba5114]

By recognisable do you mean the ground or the name? Could always compromise by calling it Tea Tree Gully but playing at Modbury.

Modbury would be a more recognised suburb than ttg. Don't even know if modbury have a team tbh though

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[chazwazza]

I think the SANFL will need to consolidate post AFL reserves teams leaving. All clubs will be down $100k from Adelaide’s fee when they leave and they’re all facing more expenses with women’s teams so I don’t see them looking at expansion anytime soon.
As someone who grew up in The Hills I just don’t see that many people would look forward to heading up to Mt Barker in winter to watch footy, I wouldn’t.

 

[glengowan]

I agree re consolidation. The 8 teams already represent and work in both metropolitan and country zones, covering all of South Australia.

I think 21 Rounds, where each team plays the other three times in a season, would work. I'd love to see each team play 3 games in the country (2 in their home zone and 1 away one year and vice versa the next year). That would make 12 games in country areas per season.

In terms of expansion, perhaps an expansion of the Country Cup and tie it in with the SANFL country games.

Currently there are 6 teams that compete in a lightning carnival type set up each year over a long weekend. There are also inter-association games.

The 6 teams for the Country Cup are Southern Districts, South East, Northern, Eyre Peninsula, Eastern and Central. From this, create 8 teams which represent each of the 8 SANFL clubs country zones.

Southern Districts (Kangaroo Island, Great Southern and Southern Football Leagues) is South Adelaide's country zone.
South East (KNTFL, MSEFL and Limestone Coast League) is Glenelg's country zone.
Northern (Far North, Broken Hill, Northern Areas, Spencer Gulf and Whyalla FL) is North's country zone.
Eyre Peninsula (the 4 EP Leagues) is Norwood's country zone.

Then we have Central which is a combination of Eagles and Central District country zones and Eastern which is a combination of Sturt and West Adelaide's country zones. Scrap these and create:

Barossa Gawler & Light representing Central District country zone.
Yorke Mid North (YPFL, NEFL & APFL) representing Eagles country zone.
Hills representing Sturt country zone.
Murray Riverland (River Murray FL, Riverland FL, Murray Valley FL) representing West Adelaide country zone.

Split these teams into two groups of 4 and have 3 games against the teams in your group over three weekends. The top of each group plays in the Final at Adelaide Oval. Perhaps on a Saturday night in late June with an SANFL game before hand. Make it an event and make each country game an event.

Going back to the 12 SANFL country games, each game would be a bye for the associations competing and would include an U18 & league representative game and then the SANFL league game.

Game 1 at Clare
10am Yorke Mid North vs Barossa Gawler & Light U18's
12pm Yorke Mid North vs Barossa Gawler & Light League
2:30pm Eagles vs Central District

Game 2 at Whyalla
Northern vs Eyre Peninsula & North Adelaide vs Norwood

Game 3 at Mount Barker
Hills vs South East & Sturt vs Glenelg

Game 4 at Renmark
Murray Riverland vs Southern Districts and West vs South

Game 5 at Tanunda
Barossa Gawler & Light vs Northern and Central District vs North Adelaide

Game 6 at Port Lincoln
Eyre Peninsula vs Yorke Mid North and Norwood vs Eagles

Game 7 at Mount Gambier
South East vs Murray Riverland and Glenelg vs West Adelaide

Game 8 at Victor Harbor
Southern Districts vs Hills and South vs Sturt

Game 9 at Port Pirie
Northern vs Yorke Mid North and North vs Eagles

Game 10 at Gawler
Barossa Gawler & Light vs Eyre Peninsula and Central vs Norwood

Game 11 at Kingscote
Southern Districts vs South East & South vs Glenelg

Game 12 at Murray Bridge
Murray Riverland vs Hills and West vs Sturt

It's all a bit long winded - but essentially I think the SANFL should stay with the 8 teams and there should be more visible connection with the country areas.

 

[chazwazza]

I agree re consolidation. The 8 teams already represent and work in both metropolitan and country zones, covering all of South Australia.

I think 21 Rounds, where each team plays the other three times in a season, would work. I'd love to see each team play 3 games in the country (2 in their home zone and 1 away one year and vice versa the next year). That would make 12 games in country areas per season.

In terms of expansion, perhaps an expansion of the Country Cup and tie it in with the SANFL country games.

Currently there are 6 teams that compete in a lightning carnival type set up each year over a long weekend. There are also inter-association games.

The 6 teams for the Country Cup are Southern Districts, South East, Northern, Eyre Peninsula, Eastern and Central. From this, create 8 teams which represent each of the 8 SANFL clubs country zones.

Southern Districts (Kangaroo Island, Great Southern and Southern Football Leagues) is South Adelaide's country zone.
South East (KNTFL, MSEFL and Limestone Coast League) is Glenelg's country zone.
Northern (Far North, Broken Hill, Northern Areas, Spencer Gulf and Whyalla FL) is North's country zone.
Eyre Peninsula (the 4 EP Leagues) is Norwood's country zone.

Then we have Central which is a combination of Eagles and Central District country zones and Eastern which is a combination of Sturt and West Adelaide's country zones. Scrap these and create:

Barossa Gawler & Light representing Central District country zone.
Yorke Mid North (YPFL, NEFL & APFL) representing Eagles country zone.
Hills representing Sturt country zone.
Murray Riverland (River Murray FL, Riverland FL, Murray Valley FL) representing West Adelaide country zone.

Split these teams into two groups of 4 and have 3 games against the teams in your group over three weekends. The top of each group plays in the Final at Adelaide Oval. Perhaps on a Saturday night in late June with an SANFL game before hand. Make it an event and make each country game an event.

Going back to the 12 SANFL country games, each game would be a bye for the associations competing and would include an U18 & league representative game and then the SANFL league game.

Game 1 at Clare
10am Yorke Mid North vs Barossa Gawler & Light U18's
12pm Yorke Mid North vs Barossa Gawler & Light League
2:30pm Eagles vs Central District

Game 2 at Whyalla
Northern vs Eyre Peninsula & North Adelaide vs Norwood

Game 3 at Mount Barker
Hills vs South East & Sturt vs Glenelg

Game 4 at Renmark
Murray Riverland vs Southern Districts and West vs South

Game 5 at Tanunda
Barossa Gawler & Light vs Northern and Central District vs North Adelaide

Game 6 at Port Lincoln
Eyre Peninsula vs Yorke Mid North and Norwood vs Eagles

Game 7 at Mount Gambier
South East vs Murray Riverland and Glenelg vs West Adelaide

Game 8 at Victor Harbor
Southern Districts vs Hills and South vs Sturt

Game 9 at Port Pirie
Northern vs Yorke Mid North and North vs Eagles

Game 10 at Gawler
Barossa Gawler & Light vs Eyre Peninsula and Central vs Norwood

Game 11 at Kingscote
Southern Districts vs South East & South vs Glenelg

Game 12 at Murray Bridge
Murray Riverland vs Hills and West vs Sturt

It's all a bit long winded - but essentially I think the SANFL should stay with the 8 teams and there should be more visible connection with the country areas.

Everyone playing each other three times is a good idea as is the country games but the AFL will demand that our season ties in with the AFL season and finishes the week before the AFL GF. I actually enjoyed when we had our GF after the AFL GF.
It might change after the AFL teams leave but I doubt it.

 

[Cubs2Lions]

Everyone playing each other three times is a good idea as is the country games but the AFL will demand that our season ties in with the AFL season and finishes the week before the AFL GF. I actually enjoyed when we had our GF after the AFL GF.
It might change after the AFL teams leave but I doubt it.

If the SANFL needs to add more clubs, wonder if they can afford to reform NT Thunder (ex-NEAFL team) again and add them in the competition before they come into the AFL landscape.

Reckon the most amount of clubs they can expand would be 12 at max (11 home & 11 away) so would give club licenses IMO to Modbury (Tea Tree Gully), Mount Barker (Hills), Darwin (Northern Territory) and possibly Adelaide University (Adelaide City) as the favourites but it would depend on where the SANFL and state government would want to build infrastructure and club resources in the future.

In saying that, really like glengowan proposal and wouldn’t mind it staying at 8 teams given it’s a better chance for my Panthers to win the premiership someday again after all these years of disappointment.

 

[glengowan]

Everyone playing each other three times is a good idea as is the country games but the AFL will demand that our season ties in with the AFL season and finishes the week before the AFL GF. I actually enjoyed when we had our GF after the AFL GF.
It might change after the AFL teams leave but I doubt it.

I agree, I'd go back to the October Long Weekend GF. Shouldn't be hard to finish before the AFL though. I reckon a Top 4 and only 3 weeks of Finals would be on the cards. Double Header Semis > Prelim > GF.

 

[glengowan]

If the SANFL needs to add more clubs, wonder if they can afford to reform NT Thunder (ex-NEAFL team) again and add them in the competition before they come into the AFL landscape.

Reckon the most amount of clubs they can expand would be 12 at max (11 home & 11 away) so would give club licenses IMO to Modbury (Tea Tree Gully), Mount Barker (Hills), Darwin (Northern Territory) and possibly Adelaide University (Adelaide City) as the favourites but it would depend on where the SANFL and state government would want to build infrastructure and club resources in the future.

In saying that, really like glengowan proposal and wouldn’t mind it staying at 8 teams given it’s a better chance for my Panthers to win the premiership someday again after all these years of disappointment.

Back in 1963 when they put together a council to assess the admission of Central and Woodville the following year, it was put forward that 8 teams should remain, but South Adelaide move to Elizabeth. It was put forward that Woodville shouldn't come in, as there would be too many teams in the western suburbs. It was also put forward that in the decade(s) to come, two new teams should be put at Modbury and Noarlunga.

As it turned out, by the mid-90's, this was just about true. Woodville and West Torrens had merged. South had moved to Noarlunga. Central were already in at Elizabeth. There was just no team out at Modbury - despite West Torrens toying with the idea in the late 70's/early 80's before that zone was given to Norwood.

A north-eastern team (TTG/Golden Grove/Modbury etc) and Port Districts (replacing Port Magpies) would fulfil the vision of all of those years ago.

Another option could be a team from Whyalla and a team from Mt Gambier? The two biggest cities outside Adelaide.

 

[Cubs2Lions]

Back in 1963 when they put together a council to assess the admission of Central and Woodville the following year, it was put forward that 8 teams should remain, but South Adelaide move to Elizabeth. It was put forward that Woodville shouldn't come in, as there would be too many teams in the western suburbs. It was also put forward that in the decade(s) to come, two new teams should be put at Modbury and Noarlunga.

As it turned out, by the mid-90's, this was just about true. Woodville and West Torrens had merged. South had moved to Noarlunga. Central were already in at Elizabeth. There was just no team out at Modbury - despite West Torrens toying with the idea in the late 70's/early 80's before that zone was given to Norwood.

A north-eastern team (TTG/Golden Grove/Modbury etc) and Port Districts (replacing Port Magpies) would fulfil the vision of all of those years ago.

Another option could be a team from Whyalla and a team from Mt Gambier? The two biggest cities outside Adelaide.

Now that is fascinating to hear and always find the SANFL history interesting similar to the VFL/AFL transformation.

Despite the Souths name, agree with they were all over the shock as they mostly played in the CBD / Footy Park and actually played in Christies Beach (at my cricket club) in the 90s for couple of years before moving to Noarlunga and would love it if they redeveloped that complex as it has so much potential for be better than it should for the club and community.

Reckon if the SANFL did wanna expand, one of the clubs will most likely be a Hills / Mount Barker team given the infrastructure and resources already in place while my other preference would be a NE team given there is no representation of SANFL clubs (other than Centrals) but a Port Districts team would be interesting as well.

 

[chazwazza]

It would be interesting if people posting on this topic would add how many sanfl games they attend each year.
I go to pretty well every Sturt game every year, the trip to Elizabeth and Noarlunga are the ones I’d likely miss if I was to miss any, for the life of me I can’t see heading up to Mt Barker as an inviting prospect and it would probably be lumped in with the other two as a week off.

It’s all very well to suggest Mt Barker but if people don’t already go to many sanfl games why the f would they go to Mt Barker in the middle of winter?

 

[glengowan]

It would be interesting if people posting on this topic would add how many sanfl games they attend each year.
I go to pretty well every Sturt game every year, the trip to Elizabeth and Noarlunga are the ones I’d likely miss if I was to miss any, for the life of me I can’t see heading up to Mt Barker as an inviting prospect and it would probably be lumped in with the other two as a week off.

It’s all very well to suggest Mt Barker but if people don’t already go to many sanfl games why the f would they go to Mt Barker in the middle of winter?

I’ve got a 5 game membership with the Eagles. Back pre AFL reserves Id go to most games.

Any new team would struggle to get any more attendance than what they’d get playing amateurs or country footy.

The key thing after the reserves leave is getting people back linking themselves to an SANFL team, even if it’s their 3rd choice team after local and AFL and they only come to the Grand Final. Whether that be family connections, historical connections or connections by living in the metro or country zone. Having the Crows and Power reserves in the SANFL gave an easy team for kids to follow if they showed any interest in the SANFL and they weren’t influenced by their parents to follow a proper SANFL club.

It’s a tough gig, but one example of why it’s harder to get people to attend SANFL is the programming of matches. They use to avoid clashes with the Crows. Now they deliberately schedule games to lead in for TV purposes. For example, Eagles vs Glenelg at 1:10pm this Sunday leading into Crows vs West Coast at 4:10pm. No one is making it from Woodville to Adelaide Oval in time for that match and there’d be heaps of Eagles and Glenelg supporters that follow the Crows. It’d probably cost the Woodville Oval game 1000 supporters that would otherwise go. And the SANFL pays Ch 7 to broadcast it’s league…

It makes it almost impossible for expansion when all roads lead to the AFL. Survival, consolidation and prospering is still a possibility though. South Australians love the game.

 

[saintal]

It would be interesting if people posting on this topic would add how many sanfl games they attend each year.
I go to pretty well every Sturt game every year, the trip to Elizabeth and Noarlunga are the ones I’d likely miss if I was to miss any, for the life of me I can’t see heading up to Mt Barker as an inviting prospect and it would probably be lumped in with the other two as a week off.

It’s all very well to suggest Mt Barker but if people don’t already go to many sanfl games why the f would they go to Mt Barker in the middle of winter?

Now that my eldest boy has reached an age where he enjoys going to the footy, I'll probably get to 6-8 South games this season and watch the remainder online. Prior to having kids I would have averaged 13-15 games a year, more often than not giving the games against the AFL interlopers a miss.

Having lived in the hills my entire life, I couldn't see their being enough support to make a hills based team viable. The HFL is very strongly supported, with Norwood and Sturt being the two SANFL clubs most likely to be supported by those with a SANFL interest. Is there the population and enough hours in the weekend (for those already with ties to HFL clubs) for a new entity to get up and running and be successful...I'm skeptical.

Yeah "The Summit" is a starting point, but as has been widely reported needs a lot of improvements and enhancements to be considered a week-to-week option for hosting games. It's not being used by Mt Barker FC/The HFL this season. Would love to see Sturt host a league game there, but there hasn't been any talk of that.