TOPIC:

yep agree it was average but playable. Slippery underfoot but we have had a LOT of rain lately. Dont know if drainage is much good at Leederville though as I seem to remember a spot in the pocket tech ground end that was always very wet even after little rain.
But in fairness when 2 teams have played before the league and all wearing studs etc cant expect much else
Not as bad as Moorabin was years ago a pic that shows how bad it used to get before the Super Soppers etc came in Melbourne.

i thought from what i saw on tv, the standard of skills set by both clubs was remarkable. The marking and ball handling was just brilliant at this level. And yet i watched the eagles fumble, bumble and muddle their way embarrassingly on a perfect surface with no mud last night.

I wouldnt worry about leederville oval. perth has had tons of rain, the ground was always going to get chopped up. Gee we whinge alot these days. Footy is a winter sport and we get games like this, or when we did in the past we didnt cry about it. So there is mud on the ground, my god what next are we going to complain about - cmon fellas??

there is no doubt the wafl will be in a very limited position to resist change. i am against it but i must be real about it. I dont like AFL-WA however if it gets the media and broadcasting people on side, then we must grab it. And dont sell the comp short people, it isnt going anywhere. we tend to panic like mad when any hint of change is thrust upon us. It wont be that bad i dont think. local footy will still be around on saturdays (or sundays) either way. yes crowds have dropped a bit, its ebbs & flows. thats been happening since forever.

anyway its a good day today get out and support your teams. next week the weather will be even better and some massive games on the table. enjoy it.

Good post jardine...


The name change is all about profile marketing and sposorship and media deals, if gets more money into club coffers , better media exposure , then it's all good ...

So what happens when someone like Toyota go ok AFL WA , we like it ,,,,here's a three year
Sponsorship deal worth 1 Million bucks for the comp, that gets it on commercial TV...

Look at the past week, nobody what's to know WAFL as brand, ch 9 pulled out due to no sponsorship.., the brand suffers an image problem and just won't pull big bucks going forward.

need to get with the times accept change and be dynamic for survival...

And don't think the AFL wont buy back the WCE or Dockers ,,it's been well muted and why should the government have any ownership of a commercial entity anyway,...it's about time the government cashed in , gave the money back to the tax payers and left the commercial interest of football to private business where it belongs,,,imagine if the Victorian Goverment owned Collingwood,,,,Wtf?

The WAFL is a dead duck. Its soul was sold decades ago. Since the inception of the Eagles, the local league has had 3 names. WASFL, Westar Rules and back to the WAFL.

What should be important to most is to preserve the clubs - their heritage and tradition. For some who haven't sold out, this can be salvaged. Maybe its time to save themselves as no one else will.

We need to be realistic, and need to move on if you want the clubs to be viable and still exist. They will be nothing more than social clubs shortly.

Football has changed, and reinventing may be the only real solution. If the AFL announced a second tier national league, who would we want there really?

Could the current League sides be in the AFL WA competing cross conference against other state teams with decent sponsors and TV coverage involved, whilst the reserves remain the WAFL for heritage sake?

I really do believe this is where football is going... The AFL have been playing with the QAFL and the ACTAFL in the form of the NEAFL for a few years now. They intend to bring this cross conference league into line with the level of the WAFL and SANFL. Is the Foxtel cup nothing more than trials?

Yes, something along those lines will surely come Mike.

The brand is dead, apart from a few stalwarts, as the article rightly stated, and ageing. mate I dont even think they will survive as social clubs unless with something like pokie machines.

I agree the priority for each supporter is their represective clubs long term survival and financial viability.

We need to be realists and pragmatic about this, I am glad these guys at Swans are throwing these ideas out there in the realisiation that the current model is dead.

I dont think some average joe WAFL supporters really have a handle on how dificult it is for the clubs to survive year to year under the current model.

Grump wrote: It seems that two of the Swans directors have an idea to change the WAFL and one of them is to change the name to AFL WA.

Now I know I will be corrected by those who know more but was not this a point of much angst amongst many and in particular some well published swans supporters, mmmm.

It seems to me that change is coming and we ALL need to embrace it with some tweaking here and there.

I will look forward to the at times bitter discussion on this topic and look to see who has the foresight and who has the hindsight.

I will be making a detailed assessment of the proposal after further research and study. However, at this point in time I would like to state what should have been put by Grump in his initial proposal. First and foremost it is NOT a Swans' proposal. The two authors of the proposal are indeed directors of Swan Districts.

The two authors, namely Paul Douglas and Howard Dawson, wrote the proposal independent of the Swans' board. Under no circumstances have they suggested that it was a Swan Districts' plan and nor have they inferred that it had been approved by the Swan Districts board.

Lest it be aid that I am a mouthpiece of those two, let me put on record that I do know Paul Douglas and have known him for several decades. I have had several conversations over the past couple of years. Howard Dawson I do not know. I have never met him and I have never had any communication with Howard Dawson other than what was sent out by Swans as part of the election of board members. Further I will state on record that I voted for Paul Douglas at the last election of the board and did not vote for Howard Dawson.

My final comment at this point in time is that I have stated my objection to the renaming of the WAFL to AFL WA and remain strident in my oppposition to that proposal.

I totally agree Bazza. The VFL has had to reinvent themselves, and has done so remarkably well. Firstly the adding of inter-state teams to an extended VFL, then a name change to the AFL.

The only reason this was done was because the VFL were struggling.

It has worked, and funds generated by the likes of the West Coast Eagles and Adelaide have only assisted in propping up basket case traditional VFL clubs.

The WAFL's soul was sold off by 6 of the traditional clubs, and its come back to bite them on the bum.

Its up to the clubs to bounce ideas and get themselves of out a pickle. Maybe this whole AFL WA idea (right or wrong) is the start for becoming more financial and credible for the future.

The WAFL today is not the recoginisable brand it could have been if people hadn't of buried their heads in the sand for the last 20 odd years.

The clubs can't continue to trade on the past that has been lost to a whole generation. They need a new product.

i dont see changing the wafl name to AFL-WA as the end of the world. I dont agree with it but i understand that only us older farts are attached to it. lets face it, once we are gone, the younger folk wont understand what all the fuss was about, or care.

the facts are young footy followers identify with the brand AFL. its as simple as that. If that lable helps in getting local football noticed by another generation of people, then the decision is justified. No matter what any of us think.

young kids only aspire to playing AFL football. they need to understand and appreciate that to get there, they must crack the tough initial competition. Right now they dont identify that competition (or respect it) as the WAFL. It does not appear on their rader as it seems. But perhaps if it were under an AFL-WA banner, the mindset could be quite different. In fact i am quite certain it would after a few years. And that will see many younger boys wanting to attend local footy on a more regular basis, out of curiosity if nothing else.

Spot on Jardine.

Its not about selling out to the AFL completely, but I do believe the AFL as self proclaimed custodians of the game need to do as much as they possibly can.

Maybe a simple change of the WAFL logo that is more inline with the AFL branding is a good start. The current WAFL logo is not traditional and the old yellow and black one is dated. The addition of the 'W' on the AFL logo is what I am suggesting.

The logo should then be used on ALL merchandise to make the clubs, WAFL logo and competition instantly recognisable.

That's what I think ...