TOPIC:

As Freezin said before, the WAFL being an AFL breeding zone nowadays complicates the “strength of zone” issues. Who are the best midfielders Claremont has produced over the last 25 years - Nat Fyfe, Tom Mitchell (only because his Dad moved here to coach at Freo) and then it drops off to blokes like Matt de Boer and Rowan Jones. East Fremantle on the other hand have produced Cousins, Black, Kerr, Hasleby, Yeo, Cripps, Woewodin (how many Brownlow votes there), Chick, Carr’s,Swallows, Mengelola, Johannisen, and other superb footballers in Sheperd, Hooker, Ryder, Kennedy, Taylor, McPharlin, Allir, Zurhaar, Rivers and Luke Jackson if you don’t mind. That’s gotta be the best draft crop from any area in the country over the past 25 years, completely superior to the list of Claremont products.
So East Freos zone is TOO strong to produce WAFL footballers - do we strengthen it further to try and get them some WAFL success? Claremont’s zone produces mostly pedestrian AFL players but handy WAFL players which has seen us dominate the competition to the tune of two flags over the past 25 years.

Tiger of old wrote:

As Freezin said before, the WAFL being an AFL breeding zone nowadays complicates the “strength of zone” issues. Who are the best midfielders Claremont has produced over the last 25 years - Nat Fyfe, Tom Mitchell (only because his Dad moved here to coach at Freo) and then it drops off to blokes like Matt de Boer and Rowan Jones. East Fremantle on the other hand have produced Cousins, Black, Kerr, Hasleby, Yeo, Cripps, Woewodin (how many Brownlow votes there), Chick, Carr’s,Swallows, Mengelola, Johannisen, and other superb footballers in Sheperd, Hooker, Ryder, Kennedy, Taylor, McPharlin, Allir, Zurhaar, Rivers and Luke Jackson if you don’t mind. That’s gotta be the best draft crop from any area in the country over the past 25 years, completely superior to the list of Claremont products.
So East Freos zone is TOO strong to produce WAFL footballers - do we strengthen it further to try and get them some WAFL success? Claremont’s zone produces mostly pedestrian AFL players but handy WAFL players which has seen us dominate the competition to the tune of two flags over the past 25 years.

Not bad TOO

Yes nice work TOO. Up there with STT's funnier material, but fact based.  Had the afl not eventuated, we can assume a long dominance of East Fremantle in the last 20 years at least, if not 35. Their premiership gap on everyone else would have increased further. 

As we all know the WAFL football landscape changed forever in 1987.
I have done a quick calculation of how every WAFL club has fared since that fateful 1987 season on how each club has gone working left to right- Finals Appearances (FA), Grand Finals (GF), Premierships (PS) & Wooden Spoons (WS)-

Club FA  GF PS WS
CL-   25, 15,  7,  0 
EF-   16,  6,   3,  3
EP-   17,  6,   3,  2
PE-    3,   0,   0,  8
PT-    3,   2,   2,  10
SF-   22, 11,  4,  1
SU-  28,  18, 10, 1 
SD-   16,  3,   2,   6
WP-  20,  9,   4,   3
WCE- 1,   0,   0,  1

I am sorry TOO but since 1987 when the WAFL landscape changed forever your 25 Finals appearances (2nd only to Subi), 15 Grand Final appearances (2nd only to Subi), 7 flags (2nd only to Subi) and 0 Wooden Spoons (the only club not to finish last, even Subi did once) would probably suggest you guys have done anything but struggled, and not really surprising considering the wealth of your zones both metro and country(s).

1977- they were strong long before the Eagales

Great bit of research BH. Staggering figures but not surprising to people who have followed the WAFL for many years. When two teams win half the number of premierships and have both made 50% of Grand Finals in that length of time, it is no wonder that people have walked away from the WAFL. The argument of some on this site that these periods of success are cyclical is shown up by these statistics to be nonsense.
The WAFC has neglected our competition for years and I doubt if any measures can repair the damage that has been done. Contrast this predictability with the AFL where all but one of the 18 teams have participated in at least one Grand Final in the past 25 years and of those teams only St Kilda and the Dockers did not taste premiership success. An equalisation policy via the draft gives the members and supporters hope that if their club do the right thing, they may one day celebrate a flag. Just look at the joy of the Melbourne people after breaking that drought this year. That success was achieved by a combination of the club getting its act together both on and off the field but they also received significant draft concessions from the AFL which enabled their rise up the ladder.
When you look at the WAFL, I can just see the  old story continuing into the future where the same clubs are at the top every year and many of us who support clubs who have not had the financial, zone or other advantages that the top clubs enjoy will continue to make up the numbers.
 

1977 is important for another reason, as the PFC won its last flag, alongside Claremont getting the wooden spoon.

The other factor of course is that Subiaco should have also won the 2016 and 2017 flags but for Fremantle stacking the Peel team with AFL players. This would have brought them up to 12 premierships since 1987. Also Peel would have had another shed load of wooden spoons had they not been propped up by the Dockers for the last 10 years.

Beasley Hutton wrote:

As we all know the WAFL football landscape changed forever in 1987.
I have done a quick calculation of how every WAFL club has fared since that fateful 1987 season on how each club has gone working left to right- Finals Appearances (FA), Grand Finals (GF), Premierships (PS) & Wooden Spoons (WS)-

Club FA  GF PS WS
CL-   25, 15,  7,  0 
EF-   16,  6,   3,  3
EP-   17,  6,   3,  2
PE-    3,   0,   0,  8
PT-    3,   2,   2,  10
SF-   22, 11,  4,  1
SU-  28,  18, 10, 1 
SD-   16,  3,   2,   6
WP-  20,  9,   4,   3
WCE- 1,   0,   0,  1

So in effect the top 4 performing clubs since 1987 have been essentially the top 4 of this season hence I have been banging on about them all year-

SU- 1st in Finals appearances, 1st in GF appearances, 1st in Premierships & equal 2nd last in Wooden Spoons (1)
CL- 2nd in Finals appearances, 2nd in GF appearances, 2nd in Premierships & last in Wooden Spoons (none)
SF- 3rd in Finals appearances, 3rd in GF appearances, 3rd in Premierships & equal 2nd last in Wooden Spoons (1)
WP- 4th in Finals appearances, 4th in GF appearances, 3rd in Premierships & equal 4th in Wooden Spoons (but none since move to Joondalup).

And the poorest performing clubs (not including the afl aligned Peel & WCE)-

PE- the record above speaks for itself
SD- minor success 20 years apart but also plenty of very poor seasons
EP- take out the 3 aligned flags and record not dissimilar to Perth 
EF- were actually still going well until the turn of the century and then have fallen away since

If the above information & records are not used or utilised by the WAFC to finally make some long needed adjustment and or help to the Eastern Suburb domiciled clubs especially PE, SD, EP & EF then I dont think they really care about the long term health of the competition and are quite happy for the WAFL to drift off into the abyss with the virtual complete dominance of the 4 clubs based along the coast from Fremantle to Joondalup.

A healthy WAFL competition would have EVERY CLUB winning a Premiership within a 10 year period not the ridiculous droughts that appear currently and the almost complete dominance of 1 club and only another 3 clubs chiming in regularly behind them!