TOPIC:

that makes no sense.
sending a kid from joondalup to play in mandurah as Peel have the first pick ?
that will go down well with his parents and who pays the transport costs and how do you deal with the impact on his studies or work from all the travelling ?
zones the only logical way but should be reviewed every 5 years.

Durtle wrote: You need to get away from zones all together. A zone that's good to one team now is shockingly bad to the same team in 10 years then you go and swap suburbs around like musical chairs.

Need to have a draft process where young kids wanting to play wafl gets picked up in the draft from junior clubs or high schools competitions.

Bottom team gets first 2 picks then every team gets a pick based on reverse ladder order.

Zones is not making the competition even, it never will.

There is some merit in this with some tweaking!

The draft should be by a zone system with clubs retaining the country zones assigned to them, Clubs get first 2 picks from their colts/development programme and the rest can go where they are drafted.

The zones would be a north,central & south one, EP, WP, Subi- Perth Swans CL - EF, SF Peel.

It works for the AFL and other sports.

kids are drafted to the afl after they finish school.
do you really think it makes sense to send a kid in year 12 who lives in joondalup to play colts at Peel ?
kids want to play with their mates and people they grow up with, to start sending kids all over the place in their 16th and 17th years is one of the most illogical things I have heard.
let them be kids first and enjoy school and footy with their mates before it gets serious.

Tiger of old wrote:

Time For a Flag wrote: What Perth have to do going forward is expand their metro zone. Applecross and Canning Vale should go to the Dees from EF. Cottesloe to EF from Claremont as compensation. Take Wanneroo off WP and give to EP too.

This weakens Claremont and WP (everyone happy with that). Strengthens Perth, EP (everyone happy with that) and is a probable even swap for EF.

Taking Applecross and Canning Vale away from EF in exchange for Cottesloe weakens EF a hell of a lot more than Claremont.

TOO I see your club has made the GF in all 3 grades, a marvelous achievement. Do you think that is just down to your clubs better resources you put into your junior and country zones or do you think it might have something to do with demographics such as average household income and percentage of migrants in each clubs zones?

If you can acknowledge that and if I acknowledge that taking zones off other clubs like EF would hurt them then what is the solution?

The only solution in the short term is that the future WAFC acknowledge this problem for the Perth Football Club and grant it considerable extra concessions in the points and salary caps to make up for our zones deficiencies and perhaps grant us the extra cash to be able to recruit and use the extra provision in our salary cap.

It is no coincidence that Perth made finals this year for the first time since 1997 and went out in straight sets after scraping in by our fingernails because we as others have said were fortunate to pick up 3 ex WCE reserves top up players, two of which had AFL experience.

Our reserves and colts still finished well down the ladder. It is also no secret that we are favourites to obtain the services of Will Schofield and Nathan Vardy due to close ties with Chris Masten. Unless we are granted extra points and salary cap concessions then I think it is going to be difficult for the club to accommodate them with Masten and Grey already on the books for next year.

The evidence is compelling that some clubs like yours have benefited for a very long time through the riches of your junior and country zones.

I think our colts are always very strong because a lot of the boys come out of the very professional PSA school football and are much more advanced than many other boys of the same age. I bet at Perth colts the boys from Aquinas and Trinity or Wesley are also more advanced than some of the others. I don't actually think our zone is far superior to other zones, places like Mossie and Cott, Dalkeith/Nedlands have far less kids growing up there now than past eras. Bear in mind that we haven't played in a league grand final since 2012 so we're not exactly dominating.

Tiger of old wrote: I think our colts are always very strong because a lot of the boys come out of the very professional PSA school football and are much more advanced than many other boys of the same age. I bet at Perth colts the boys from Aquinas and Trinity or Wesley are also more advanced than some of the others. I don't actually think our zone is far superior to other zones, places like Mossie and Cott, Dalkeith/Nedlands have far less kids growing up there now than past eras. Bear in mind that we haven't played in a league grand final since 2012 so we're not exactly dominating.

Well we know due to the dominance of Subiaco and a couple of alignments that have dominated recent GF's.

But someone recently posted Claremont have made finals in colts for the last 25 years. That is surely a record to be envious of and little wonder you have so many players drafted and so much depth in your ranks.

Yes Smokey there is a lot to be looking forward to.
Maston, Yeo and Byrne were huge outs.
However we made finals without them.
Just looked at the budget for the Claremont game.
Noted that there were 35 players listed for a total of 78 points.
Whilst there were a couple of names missing, I think there is room in the points for strategic recruiting.
There is an ability to identify what is needed and a determination to make it happen.
No doubt there is a room for optimism that for the first time since the 70s the DEES may make finals 2 years in a row.
And not to just make up numbers.

Perth fans seem to be ignoring the ready made footy zone over their back fence.... already produced results in ending a 23 year drought and with the promise of more players in the pipeline to end that even bigger drought....

Gee thanks for sharing your intimate knowledge of everything DEMON Freeze.
That zone over the fence is available to all Clubs.
At least those ones capable of fostering a relationship with neighbours.
I guess that rules out predators.