TOPIC:

So why have zones at all? Take junior development away from individual clubs, including colts. Have a separate colts competition with 6-8 teams. And have an annual draft. 

Country member wrote:

So why have zones at all? Take junior development away from individual clubs, including colts. Have a separate colts competition with 6-8 teams. And have an annual draft. 

Taking away zones and following the Victorian model with standalone junior development pathways would be a backwards step for the WAFL. 

The Vic U18s comp is fully funded by the AFL with their only concern being to support the AFL talent pathway.

Whilst the draft works for the AFL with players being offered full time contracts, a draft for the remaining players to WAFL clubs (with little to no financial gain) won’t work. 

The WAFL already has significant issues retaining its talent when players go undrafted and they realise their AFL dream is over.  There is a huge drain of talent to country and ammo footy. Fringe League players being offered $1000 a game and genuine league players attracting up to $2000 in the bush. 

Freezin wrote:

Sadly BC, clubs aren't going to hand over their successful zones to help Perth, as Perth aren't going to hand over their financial success to help other clubs. Equality has two sides to it. Are Subi willing to hand over the Goldfields to Perth? I know EF handed over the North Midlands zone to Perth, now they would like Geraldton no doubt.


Perhaps a club like Peel , with the best of both worlds- money and zones should be looked at first then. Perth push into  EF, EF push into SF, SF push into Peel....Peel rely on Freo for their recruiting - best 18 yr olds around the state and country....plus they get access to senior players for free, which other WAFL clubs,  would cough up 10-12 pts  and pay 50K for eg Reidy, Brodie, Voss, Erasmus, Aish etc. But Peel are a protected species, so that won't happen.Cl have money and zones.....the best zones, how about they cough up something? 

On the flip side EP have just won the minor premiership, their zones aren't chocablock full of riches.....they have recruited quality and done their best with what local resources they have.....ditto SD.....have they received better zones, more cap and player points? Some clubs have zones, some have money, focus on the ones who have both first and work down from there I guess.

How fucking entitled are you? "Clubs aren't going to HAND over THEIR ZONES". Like you own them like it's your birthright. It's that kind of selfish attitude that starves the WAFL of a fair competition. So you just expect us to survive by relying on recruiting to be competitive when in fact despite recruiting about 11 players in the last two seasons we have still only managed to finish last and second last.

If the WAFC had any guts they would redistribute zones based on consistent levels of succes or lack of it in particular country zones. It is absolute madness that while Claremont enjoys the richest metro zone probably in the country they also enjoy the riches of a thriving country zone.

At the very least the WAFC should be saying we are going to try equalising the competition by giving the strongest country zone to the weakest WAFL club and that is clearly Perth. You all make that blatantly obvious on a regular basis.

Heard someone say on a 91.3 podcast East Fremantle have 12 former AFL players in their team. Wow, incredible and I'd say all but a couple would be home grown ex AFL players. Boekhurst and English being ex SD and Perth. Perth has only one I can think of being Mathew Taylor.

Agree with your comments on zones DD. It's no coincidence Claremont colts have finished the home and away season in the top two eight of the last ten years whereas Perth has done it only twice over the same period but also finished bottom two on 5 occasions.

There could be any number of reasons for that particular anomaly but I'd start with zone allocation if I were the WAFC.

DD, how many of the 11 recruits Perth have brought in over the last 2 seasons will still be at Perth in 2025? 
And just as importantly why have they left?  The club is financial so money isn't the issue, you have more points available than other clubs too...so what's the reason? 

Answer that and it will will answer why you struggle to attract and retain the available talent from within your district. They say success breeds success...nearly 50 years of mediocrity isn't helping Perth recruit and retain. 

Why would any club hand it's zones over to Perth who have a country zone on their doorstep and fail to work it well. What hope do you think Perth would have trying to service the Kimberley, Kalgoorlie, Albany or Esperance? 

Who cares about Colts and Ressies flags anyway, it's all about your League team winning a flag. Subiaco didn't get much through there zone for several years and most that did come through went on to AFL but recruited well and had excellent success. EP doesn't have a good metro zone but again have recruited well. Swans have recruited well too. 

If Claremont and EF have such strong zones then why aren't Perth topping up their squad with the overflowing talent once these players turn 19 and arent on the protected 40? seems most of the movement is from Perth not too Perth. I'm sure Cody Leggett is happy with his decision

Worst Case Scenario

A Graders Gone: Thompson, Chaplin, Sing, Avery

B Graders Gone: Manzone, Cary, AJ, Howard, Poole, Cooley

A Graders Retained and to get more out of: Constable (only played 8-9), Schlensog (only played 8-9), A Clarke (only played 11-12), Simpson (only played 3-4 games)

To continue current form: Taylor, Byrne, Coniglio, R Clarke, TBH, Stubbs,

To improve on good seasons: Wills, J Clark, Kemp, Ewing, Edwards, Davis, Fairbank, Johnston, Cachard, Hine Baston, Hall x 2, Newick, Scoble, Bodle, John, Gray, Hill, Q,

I am not sure about Shannon, Phillips, Pettit, Hayward, Lee, Wood, Moody, Lonnie, Evans

FYI for all the posters on this zone topic.No opinions just facts.I took out these stats(from Ric’s excellent site) some time ago when a discussion of WP’s zone performance was being discussed and it made for some interesting reading.I took the period 1994 - 2023 inclusive( being 30 seasons) and that coincided with the first year WP started in Joondalup so they were closer to their metropolitan zone.While collating the info the performance of some of the other clubs started to get intriguing.Anyway here goes.
Some factors to consider: 1) some years were final 5,the majority 4.2)Peel started in1997.3)there have been zone changes at various stages - haven’t listed anything on that.Using the basis of a) finals contested b) GF appearances and c) premiership wons the “league ladder “ looks like this:
CL.  26,19,10
EF.  21,10,4
SF.  14,7,4
Peel 13,5,3
SD.  12,6,4
EP.   12,3,2
Su.   12,3,2
P.      10,5,1
WP.   9,2,0
Some interesting side points - SD have beaten CL 3 times for their premierships and the Leederville co-tenants(although not for all the period in question) have exactly the same record.Some info is pretty straightforward but some surprising.
Hope this stuff is interesting and might help your respective points of view.

Naagh not being entitled DD, just realistic.....in a dog eat dog competition, not sure any club is willingly going to hand another club any sort of advantage they have. 

 I can't see many clubs are going to be thrilled to hand over a zone, they have heavily  invested in and built from the ground up, with their own financial resources and manpower, to a club,  to simply walk in a reap the benefits from the off. But I wouldn't say no to Perth snaring Peel's zone as a starting point....does Peel even need a zone with an AFL club funding them?






 

TheFeds wrote:

FYI for all the posters on this zone topic.No opinions just facts.I took out these stats(from Ric’s excellent site) some time ago when a discussion of WP’s zone performance was being discussed and it made for some interesting reading.I took the period 1994 - 2023 inclusive( being 30 seasons) and that coincided with the first year WP started in Joondalup so they were closer to their metropolitan zone.While collating the info the performance of some of the other clubs started to get intriguing.Anyway here goes.
Some factors to consider: 1) some years were final 5,the majority 4.2)Peel started in1997.3)there have been zone changes at various stages - haven’t listed anything on that.Using the basis of a) finals contested b) GF appearances and c) premiership wons the “league ladder “ looks like this:
CL.  26,19,10
EF.  21,10,4
SF.  14,7,4
Peel 13,5,3
SD.  12,6,4
EP.   12,3,2
Su.   12,3,2
P.      10,5,1
WP.   9,2,0
Some interesting side points - SD have beaten CL 3 times for their premierships and the Leederville co-tenants(although not for all the period in question) have exactly the same record.Some info is pretty straightforward but some surprising.
Hope this stuff is interesting and might help your respective points of view.


 

Really interesting Colts stats but just proves Zones and Colts success isn't directly related to League premierships. 
In that same time period - League Flags 
S - 9
WP - 5
SF - 4 
C - 3 
EF - 3
EP - 3
PT - 2
SD - 1
P - 0

 

Time For a Flag wrote:

Worst Case Scenario

A Graders Gone: Thompson, Chaplin, Sing, Avery
P
B Graders Gone: Manzone, Cary, AJ, Howard, Poole, Cooley

A Graders Retained and to get more out of: Constable (only played 8-9), Schlensog (only played 8-9), A Clarke (only played 11-12), Simpson (only played 3-4 games)

To continue current form: Taylor, Byrne, Coniglio, R Clarke, TBH, Stubbs,

To improve on good seasons: Wills, J Clark, Kemp, Ewing, Edwards, Davis, Fairbank, Johnston, Cachard, Hine Baston, Hall x 2, Newick, Scoble, Bodle, John, Gray, Hill, Q,

I am not sure about Shannon, Phillips, Pettit, Hayward, Lee, Wood, Moody, Lonnie, Evans

Schlensog played 15 games, only missed the first three.