In the 60s and 70s, the premierships teams of each of the four major states of Australian Rules Football -Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania – would meet in Adelaide in October to determine who was the premier club in Aussie Rules.
Bear in mind that this was long before the days of the national competition.
It gave Victorian clubs such as Carlton the chance to check the playing talents of their inter-state counterparts (as the Blues found out in 1972, when North Adelaide’s Barrie Robran played the game of his life to destroy Carlton almost on his own).
Now it’s time to bring the Australian Football Championships back again. But this time, as a second-tier pre-season competition.
The grand finalists of the VFL, SANFL, WAFL, AFL Tasmania, AFL NSW, AFL Queensland and AFL Northern Territory would meet in a straight knock-out comp that would run in conjunction with the AFL NAB Cup.
The Australian Football Championships would be known as the NAB Challenge and the Grand Final would be played as a curtain-raiser to the AFL NAB Cup.
How would SANFL premiers Central Districts go against the VFL’s premiers North Ballarat? Or maybe against the WAFL premiers Subiaco, if they had the chance?
If the AFL wants to further boost the profile of the second tier comps, here’s their chance. Otherwise, we’ll never know just who is the number one club outside of the AFL.
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"That's the worst plan I have ever heard in my life!"
How could you, Hughesy!
A few weeks ago, I dubbed Carlton and Geelong as the premiership frontrunners - at a time when they sat, respectively, fourth and first…
An innocuous incident - but any trouble for the Chad?
Safe to say Hodgey was fighting a lone battle with this take!
Surely this had to be recalled!
