The SANFL didn't compare to the VFL back in the day

[Dalphonso]

Russell Ebert was the best exponent of the handball with either hand...in terms of accuracy...no contest

I have heard there was a bloke named Greg Williams who might beg to differ?
You have to remember that Ebert only excelled in the B grade SANFL.
He did step up to the A grade playing at North Melbourne but although he did well.He certainly wasn't outstanding.Age was against him.


(*Moderator's Note - new thread started on topic raised in existing thread)

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

I have heard there was a bloke named Greg Williams who might beg to differ?
You have to remember that Ebert only excelled in the B grade SANFL.
He did step up to the A grade playing at North Melbourne but although he did well.He certainly wasn't outstanding.Age was against him.

The bloke trained with Port on Tuesday, flew over Thursday arvo and trained with North, played on Saturday, flew back Sunday morning and ran his business during the week. Finished the highest posession winner for North and 3rd or 4th in North's B&F. Not a bad effort for a 29 year old.

Re playing in a B grade comp - I'll quote myself from 2005 post 242

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threa...llpointsfooty-net.178054/page-10#post-3429968

I was watching Grumpy Old Men last night and was very interested in what Graham Moss had to say (Bob Hank the 81year old, 8 fingered West Torrens champion of the 40’s and 50’s was also very entertaining).

For those who don’t know much about Graham Moss, he was a ruckman who started his career at Claremont in 1968 and then transferred to Essendon in 1973. He was runner up in the Brownlow in 1973, 10th in 1974, 3rd in 1975 and won it in 1976. He then returned to Claremont as captain coach in 1977. He played 30 games for WA and 5 for Victoria. Tony Shaw asked him, with an incredulous look in his eye, why he returned to the WAFL when he had the football, ie VFL footy, world at his feet. Shaw typically believe that VFL was the only footy to worry about.

Moss replied that as a civil engineer, career came first, he had to look after his young family and that as captain coach he was paid a decent wage. People forget that prior to sometime in the 1980’s virtually no one made any money out of playing footy.

Moss then said “anyway there wasn’t that much difference between WAFL, SANFL and VFL footy at the time” so he didn’t think it was a backward step in his footy career to return to the WAFL.

We all have an opinion as to how different the standards of the 3 main leagues were. I tend to agree with someone who played in 2 or the Leagues and dominated both of them. I figure he would have a better opinion than those of us who just watched.

 

[Portia]

He did step up to the A grade playing at North Melbourne but although he did well.He certainly wasn't outstanding.Age was against him.

North Melbourne's highest possession getter in 1979, flying in and out of Melbourne every week before it was a common thing?

 

[Ford Fairlane]

I have heard there was a bloke named Greg Williams who might beg to differ?
You have to remember that Ebert only excelled in the B grade SANFL.
He did step up to the A grade playing at North Melbourne but although he did well.He certainly wasn't outstanding.Age was against him.

Every time Ebert at North is mentioned you trot out this drivel and are corrected every time. By now you know what you are saying is rubbish so don't bother again.

In that one year as well as the other facts mentioned Ebert had the third highest Brownlow votes for North behind Gary Dempsey and Ross Glendinning and ahead of stars like Blight, Greig, Schimmelbusch and Alves.

 

[Dalphonso]

Every time Ebert at North is mentioned you trot out this drivel and are corrected every time. By now you know what you are saying is rubbish so don't bother again.

In that one year as well as the other facts mentioned Ebert had the third highest Brownlow votes for North behind Gary Dempsey and Ross Glendinning and ahead of stars like Blight, Greig, Schimmelbusch and Alves.

Shane Woewodin won a Brownlow and Tredrea had a better year than Judd but the umpies didn't like him.Brownlow votes mean jack.
Trotting out rubbish about Ebert is A bit like you continually bleating on what a great bloke and champion footballer David Granger was when he was merely a thug who belted blokes behind play.He played in the VFL too but couldn't cut the mustard.
Anyway I never said Ebert failed in the VFL.Ebert himself said in the SANFL he was a big fish in a little pond and when he went there that there were 5 or 6 blokes better than him at North and just about every other club.
He should have gone 5 or 6 years earlier.Every club was chasing him and Robran for years.
My post was more at bagging the standard of the SANFL than the career of Russell Ebert.
The standard wasn't far behind the VFL but it was behind whether you old timers like to admit it or not.The VFL was always a slightly stronger comp as they had money to recruit the best players frow the West,SA and Tassie.Half the decent players stayed at home though.Like Robran,Ebert and Steven Michael from WA.Malcolm Blight will always get more Kudos for his career than Robran and Ebert although he may not have been as good.He played longer in the premier competition.

 

[b0ydman]

Shane Woewodin won a Brownlow and Tredrea had a better year than Judd but the umpies didn't like him.Brownlow votes mean jack.
Trotting out rubbish about Ebert is A bit like you continually bleating on what a great bloke and champion footballer David Granger was when he was merely a thug who belted blokes behind play.He played in the VFL too but couldn't cut the mustard.
Anyway I never said Ebert failed in the VFL.Ebert himself said in the SANFL he was a big fish in a little pond and when he went there that there were 5 or 6 blokes better than him at North and just about every other club.
He should have gone 5 or 6 years earlier.Every club was chasing him and Robran for years.

if there is one person in SA who will have 150,000 people with a story to tell of his selflessness at his state funeral, its russell ebert.
if there ever was a player who would be humble enough to note those other players around him in a team- when in truth he was probably better than them, it is russell ebert

your comment is superflous

even_I_have a "i can't believe he really did that" story about how russell

i had a friend who lost some money in a business transaction, nothing unusual, just a creditor in a business. no fraud theft or deception, just business. russell was friends with the person who owed my friend money and contacted my friend and more or less said look the guy is my friend (even though RE had NOTHING to do with the business or transaction) i know you are out of pocket in your business dealings, but if its any use i have 2 grandstand tix to a showdown i'll drive them around to you. they wont help with the creditor thing but its $100 worth of something you never had.

RE never knew me or my friend and owed neither or us or his friend ANYthing

i am sure half of Adelaide has a story of how they know RE did this kind of thing

if you know RE, your saying "RE said there were 4 or 5 people blah blah" is malicious and a slight on his character. i can only assume you are yet to experience the person he is. the world is a better place for russell ebert.

id go so far as to say the club is a better place for his involvement and we should keep his son in the team until he retires from AFL.

 

[Northalives]

Every time Ebert at North is mentioned you trot out this drivel and are corrected every time. By now you know what you are saying is rubbish so don't bother again.

In that one year as well as the other facts mentioned Ebert had the third highest Brownlow votes for North behind Gary Dempsey and Ross Glendinning and ahead of stars like Blight, Greig, Schimmelbusch and Alves.

.....and he was the only player, from memory, that played every game for North Melbourne that year.

People who never saw him play should either listen to those who did or just shut their gobs!

 

[Dalphonso]

if there is one person in SA who will have 150,000 people with a story to tell of his selflessness at his state funeral, its russell ebert.
if there ever was a player who would be humble enough to note those other players around him in a team- when in truth he was probably better than them, it is russell ebert

your comment is superflous

even_I_have a "i can't believe he really did that" story about how russell

i had a friend who lost some money in a business transaction, nothing unusual, just a creditor in a business. no fraud theft or deception, just business. russell was friends with the person who owed my friend money and contacted my friend and more or less said look the guy is my friend (even though RE had NOTHING to do with the business or transaction) i know you are out of pocket in your business dealings, but if its any use i have 2 grandstand tix to a showdown i'll drive them around to you. they wont help with the creditor thing but its $100 worth of something you never had.

RE never knew me or my friend and owed neither or us or his friend ANYthing

i am sure half of Adelaide has a story of how they know RE did this kind of thing

if you know RE, your saying "RE said there were 4 or 5 people blah blah" is malicious and a slight on his character. i can only assume you are yet to experience the person he is. the world is a better place for russell ebert.

id go so far as to say the club is a better place for his involvement and we should keep his son in the team until he retires from AFL.

A very noble post and no one is arguing that Russell wasn't a terrific bloke.But I bet you might get an argument from a few on here that Brett Ebert should still keep his spot in the team until he retires.
Many believe he should " be retired" this week

 

[Dalphonso]

.....and he was the only player, from memory, that played every game for North Melbourne that year.

People who never saw him play should either listen to those who did or just shut their gobs!

Thats more than likely why he got more Brownlow votes?
All the other blokes were injured or suspended

 

[Ford Fairlane]

Thats more than likely why he got more Brownlow votes?
All the other blokes were injured or suspended

What possible satisfaction could you get from shitpotting great champions of this club whose heroic deeds lifted Port Adelaide's history so high as to become the only genuine club to be admitted to the AFL?

 

[b0ydman]

A very noble post and no one is arguing that Russell wasn't a terrific bloke.
But I bet you might get an argument from a few on here that Brett Ebert should still keep his spot in the team until he retires.
Many believe he should " be retired" this week

true
his old man be the first to say if you dont earn it you shouldn't get it
that say, i only have 2 words in relation to contract extensions
Matthew Westhoff
actually, just "westhoff" is more relevant

back to toe OT- those passages of long handballs and slick movement in the 2002 team were just sublime.
the speed we moved the ball.
i watch that and just wonder how we ended up with those clowns out there
what happened to us?
what happened to you?
how can you dump on him like that?
are you an Ex-glenelg SANFL player from 1979 by any chance?

 

[Northalives]

Shane Woewodin won a Brownlow and Tredrea had a better year than Judd but the umpies didn't like him.Brownlow votes mean jack.
Trotting out rubbish about Ebert is A bit like you continually bleating on what a great bloke and champion footballer David Granger was when he was merely a thug who belted blokes behind play.He played in the VFL too but couldn't cut the mustard.
Anyway I never said Ebert failed in the VFL.Ebert himself said in the SANFL he was a big fish in a little pond and when he went there that there were 5 or 6 blokes better than him at North and just about every other club.
He should have gone 5 or 6 years earlier.Every club was chasing him and Robran for years.
My post was more at bagging the standard of the SANFL than the career of Russell Ebert.
The standard wasn't far behind the VFL but it was behind whether you old timers like to admit it or not.The VFL was always a slightly stronger comp as they had money to recruit the best players frow the West,SA and Tassie.Half the decent players stayed at home though.Like Robran,Ebert and Steven Michael from WA.Malcolm Blight will always get more Kudos for his career than Robran and Ebert although he may not have been as good.He played longer in the premier competition.

You have absolutely no ****ing idea !

The SANFL was not inferior to the VFL in the era that Russell Ebert played. The difference between the VFL and the SANFL was that the old boys club in this state just sat around at the Adelaide Club on North Terrace, sipping their Napoleon Brandy and smoking cigars whilst the VFL rapped SANFL (and WAFL) clubs of their best players and no club; repeat NO club, suffered more than Port Adelaide.

The standard of football in South Australia in those days was as good as that played in Victoria and for you johnny-come-lately's, stop thinking that the way the world is today, is the way it has always been.

That young fella, Craig Bradley, turned out to be only half as good as Russell Ebert and he should be proud of himself: he was a champion footballer but only HALF as good as Russell!

 

[Dalphonso]

You have absolutely no ****ing idea !

The SANFL was not inferior to the VFL in the era that Russell Ebert played. The difference between the VFL and the SANFL was that the old boys club in this state just sat around at the Adelaide Club on North Terrace, sipping their Napoleon Brandy and smoking cigars whilst the VFL rapped SANFL (and WAFL) clubs of their best players and no club; repeat NO club, suffered more than Port Adelaide.

The standard of football in South Australia in those days was as good as that played in Victoria and for you johnny-come-lately's, stop thinking that the way the world is today, is the way it has always been.

That young fella, Craig Bradley, turned out to be only half as good as Russell Ebert and he should be proud of himself: he was a champion footballer but only HALF as good as Russell!

The trouble is you old blokes are just pig ignorant.
Watch a replay of any SANFL Grand Final from the 70's and early to mid 80's and compare them with video's of the VFL Grand Finals during that same period and then you come back and tell us young fellers(I am 46 on the 15th July}What the better standard of football was and who had more A grade players on each side?
The trouble is you old blokes continually let the very young falsely believe that the SANFL was the equievalant of the VFL when you are sadly misquided and view only from a parochial South Australian perspective.

 

[Relativity]

The trouble is you old blokes are just pig ignorant.
Watch a replay of any SANFL Grand Final from the 70's and early to mid 80's and compare them with video's of the VFL Grand Finals during that same period and then you come back and tell us young fellers(I am 46 on the 15th July}What the better standard of football was and who had more A grade players on each side?
The trouble is you old blokes continually let the very young falsely believe that the SANFL was the equievalant of the VFL when you are sadly misquided and view only from a parochial South Australian perspective.

Regardless of the differing standards between the VFL and the SNAFL it is absurd to imply that Russell was not at the top of the tree in terms of talent because he played mostly in SA.
As a matter of interest how do you see Barry Robran given he played his entire career in SA?

 

[Portia]

The trouble is you old blokes continually let the very young falsely believe that the SANFL was the equievalant of the VFL when you are sadly misquided and view only from a parochial South Australian perspective.

Boy, its good that you're here as the voice of absolute objectivity for them.

 

[Northalives]

The trouble is you old blokes are just pig ignorant.
Watch a replay of any SANFL Grand Final from the 70's and early to mid 80's and compare them with video's of the VFL Grand Finals during that same period and then you come back and tell us young fellers(I am 46 on the 15th July}What the better standard of football was and who had more A grade players on each side?
The trouble is you old blokes continually let the very young falsely believe that the SANFL was the equievalant of the VFL when you are sadly misquided and view only from a parochial South Australian perspective.

You may be 46 but you have no ****ing idea if you think that the SANFL standard was worse than the VFL's in the 70's 'till the mid 80's.

Take out all the interstate players involved in the VFL in that era and there would be absolutely no difference between the amount of A graders in Victorian sides and South Australian sides.

The thing that really riles me though, is your disgraceful remarks about God/Russell Ebert. If you really are dinkum that Russell was only an average player, then you are completely devoid of any semblance of intelligence when it comes to Australian Rules Football.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

Really though when former champions of the game say there wasn't that big a difference between the leagues back in the day, well what would they know anyway? Heck they were only out there playing the game.

 

[Northalives]

Really though when former champions of the game say there wasn't that big a difference between the leagues back in the day, well what would they know anyway? Heck they were only out there playing the game.

I remember a Richmond player being interviewed after one of these time shortened footy matches at the end of the year played back in the late 70's, between the grand finalists as a sort of, "champions of Australia" type thing.
This Richmond player, he was stunned, completely stunned at how good Port were. We either won by a point or lost by a point but I'll never forget the Richmond player saying, " we had never heard of Kinnear ....etc....etc.... but they were brilliant!". I'll never forget the look on his face as he was interview after the game; it's as if he'd seen a ghost.

 

[Eddie Dingle]

I think that was after both clubs won the 1980 Grand Final in their respective states and it was a pre-season game at Alberton. They beat us by a point after we had a barnstorming finish.

Anyone that thinks that Ebert and Robran and their contemporaries achievements are lessened by not playing in the VFL, or only doing it briefly as in Eberts case, is showing a distinct lack of knowledge in terms of the closeness of the 2 leagues. I don't think anyone here is saying the SANFL was better but the top players in our league were every bit as good as what was on show in the VFL.

 

[tribey]

Lol I knew Dalphonso would have his hands all over this thread.

 

[tribey]

I don't think anyone here is saying the SANFL was better but the top players in our league were every bit as good as what was on show in the VFL.

Chris McDermott's numbers in 1992 being a prime example. From 'second-rate SNAFFLE hack' to racking up 720 disposals like shelling peas.

Hodges too, just boots a lazy 11 on the Minor Premier.

 

[Ebert80]

The SANFL and WAFL weren't quite up to the standard of the VFL in the 1970's and 80's, but the difference was not significant. Nowhere near like comparing the current SANFL and AFL.

 

[FishingRick04]

I was a diehard SANFL tragic, I always thought our brand was the equal. Never really took interest in the VFL other than the State games.

Part of the reason we don't have complete AFl acceptance in this town because a greater part of the population at my age probably thought the same and their team didn't get it.

I always thought Russel reflected that he was impressed with the VFL but it wasn't that good that he was intimidated by it. I think the two leagues when he played IHO were very close.

These arguments are like primal men wanting to compare who has the biggest appendage, doesn't it really matter? Probably not.

Russel is legend, Robran legend as much as Coleman is a legend for example.

 

[70sDinosaur]

I think in the 70s the VFL was slightly ahead of SA and WA, but not by as much as it should have been, given Victoria's greater population and wealth and ability to attract interstate recruits.

The best club sides in SA and WA could more than hold their own against VFL teams and in my opinion it's a shame that these clubs (apart from Port) never got the chance to play in the AFL and we instead ended up with ridiculous composite "franchise" teams.

But of course history is written by the victors and the quality of SA and WA football in that era must be tarnished and diminished by propaganda at every opportunity to ensure that history is rewritten to suit the AFL's revisionist agenda.

 

[Dalphonso]

Really though when former champions of the game say there wasn't that big a difference between the leagues back in the day, well what would they know anyway? Heck they were only out there playing the game.

Thats right.
They weren't spending their entire day watching the TV either when all you got to watch of the VFL was one hour each week on the ABC.Remember the winners with Drew Morphett.