I am similar to you aneale in my viewing on a Friday night or Sat arvo. Its not the standard of AFL (its good) but the over umpiring that drives me mad.
Can you or anyone answer me this; Can you tell me one AFL football tradition (besides the showdowns) unique to SA?
Hands in the back, chopping of the arms, interchange rule, deliberate out of bounds, deliberate rushed behinds, advantage rule, 50m penalty, sub rule all rubbish that adds nothing to game and is over umpired or poorly interpreted, none of which we have to put up with in the SANFL for the most part.
And no, there is none. The Saturday night thing which really was our thing for a long time has been lost to QLD because everyone whines about the heat so day games are basically out. Given the AFL now insists on few real clashes for telecast purposes we got bumped.
Its all become about ensuring the blockbuster games get played twice a year between each other in the prime slots leaving the non-Vic states to slug it out for the minor spots that don't lead to the 'tradition' of going to the game regularly. It's pretty easy to set you schedule to Collingwood's fixture.
There is more to tradition than ANZAC games, it can just be day to day. And I agree wholeheartedly, the AFL actually needs to be the AFL. Hold the Brownlow in Adelaide or Perth, move the draft, amazing that they did that for Gold Coast. They need to start acting like all States are part of this league and not just continually confirm its a rebadged VFL.
The AFL is considered to be the most corrupted front line national competition in the world outside of Australia, because its fixed. There is no parity with regard to fixturing and other issues. It's been 20+ years we should have seen some improvement by now.