anchorman wrote: jardine ,most of the kids drafted by the AFL clubs never make it to the WAFL league level, they are taken before they get that far. The AFL will begin to ru8n the under age competitions.
If the WAFL gets into much more trouble then you will see the AFL step in and take over. There is nothing surer. I am sure that that is what the AFL want all over Australia.
sad thing is you may well be right there anchorman.
the usual forgotten thing in a general sense, is that the big 3 state leagues are actually legitimate competitions that have been operating for a century. Seems that because they are old, they are deemed out of date. When in reality they should be held in high regard, you cant buy this kind of tradition. And all these clubs produce talent. Why spend multi-millions on restructuring a format, that already has an infrastructure in place.
I would love to see a list of how many kids are drafted from the under 19's, and how many get spat out & eventually lost to the code. I bet there would be a list so long it would make our heads spin. We all hear about the success stories, you will never hear the failures and there are many. Some kids mature later, that is a forgotten fact and it shows a complete lack of nouse by the AFL and the recruiters. For that reason I have always believed we lose so many more "footballers" because of this obsession with drafting babies, rather than giving some of them an extra few years to work out what is required by playing against men on a league scale.
The underrated state league football competitions can give the AFL so much more, but because of the narrow minded attitudes at the top, we don't take advantage of what I call the crucial catchment area of football. It is an area that should be utilised so much more, hence the reason I will fight to the death for the WAFL, SANFL and the VFL. And I am talking about at "league level".
I saw a bunch of footballers for Subiaco who made a bunch of AFL players look stupid on Grand Final day. I have no doubt many of those Subi boys could cut it at an AFL club, but they probably wont. Even though some may be in the age group of 20-24, the AFL clubs would not even give them a look in, because they are not playing at Colts level. Yet in actual fact, some of these players have halved the ground work for the AFL clubs, but due to a perception, and that's all this is "a perception", recruiters meander around league level football like lazy cows. It is a serious competition not utilised. I will promote this fact until I croak.
And the day the AFL take over, control and eventually kill off state league football, will see sports like soccer take over as the major code in this country. And this is because the young kids drafted that are spat out, will never be given that extra time at league level to mature. We already lose many of these kids now, imagine the drop off if league football is reduced to the scrap heap. There is nothing surer.
Restricting & choking competitions like the WAFL are completely irresponsible. Todays Brownlow Medallist is just one minor example. If in fact we need one.
