This year, the 2016 West Australian Football League premiers were Peel Thunder, a club that never made the WAFL finals before 2015 and who’d obviously never won a premiership.
The significance of this feat? Not only do the Peel Thunder fraternity now have a (state-level) premiership, but so do 17 listed Fremantle players who played on that Sunday.
Huh? Fremantle players?! Yup. This is because Peel Thunder are the WAFL affiliate of the Fremantle Dockers, very much like how East Perth are West Coast’s lower-level affiliate.
However, in light of Peel’s WAFL success, a quick look at Fremantle’s social media proves that social media commentators are not happy how a state-level side was able to ascend to victory while filled – or perhaps because they were filled – with AFL-listed players.
“Freo Thunder won,” they cried. “This isn’t right, WAFL and AFL are separate,” they noted. “The only premiership the Dockers will ever win,” they taunted. However, it is this Fremantle-Peel collaboration that is good for both parties, and the wider game.
Let’s break this down for a minute. A quick look at the team-sheets for the WAFL grand final shows that Peel’s opponents, Subiaco, had a 100 per cent current WAFL-level playing list, with a smidge of AFL experience to be found within the ranks.
Peel’s had 17 Fremantle players, with all bar three (Harley Balic, Josh Deluca and Ryan Nyhuis) having made senior debuts. Peel’s team also included five Peel players, including captain Gerald Ugle. On paper, certainly, there seems to be a significant difference in experience between Subiaco and Peel.
However, when you look closer you notice that, when you take away Balic, Deluca, Nyhuis and the five Peel-listed players, you’re left with 14 players: seven of whom are first or second year players who have played less than 15 Fremantle games apiece, and arguably only got extended seniors opportunities because of Freo’s dreadful season.
So, yes, it can be argued that in reality the Peel team had a more experienced outfit than their competitors, but so did East Perth (the Eagles WAFL affiliate) in 2013 and 2014 when they were stacked with AFL-listed players and still lost consecutive grand finals.
The wider question, though, is this: on the basis of Peel’s win, does the entire WAFL system lose credibility? Hardly.
All eighteen AFL clubs have state-level affiliations, within the WAFL, NEAFL, SANFL and the VFL. In the past few weeks alone, both the VFL and the NEAFL premiers have been teams with direct affiliations to AFL clubs: Footscray (the Western Bulldogs) and the Western Sydney University Giants (GWS), with both sets of runners-up also being the AFL affiliates, from Melbourne and the Swans respectively.
The SANFL premiers were the exception to this rule – neither Port nor the Crows’ affiliate teams progressed to the grand final. These affiliations are, no matter the criticism, ultimately good for the game.
They allow, as often popularised in the media, for clubs to play out-of-form or injured players without the high-level pressure of the AFL season. These games are usually played at a lower-pace and intensity than at AFL level, and are often the place for players to find form – take Lin Jong’s scintillating form in the VFL final, or the often-weekly news of injured players returning through their team’s affiliate side, for instance. Imagine the game we know and love if there was no opportunity for injured or out-of-form players to ease their return through before returning to the big leagues.
They benefit the state-level players, by exposing them to games in the presence of their more experienced colleagues. Say what you will about the presence of senior players in a lower-league, but the experience their often-younger and less experienced state-league peers can gain from playing against them is often invaluable, and extremely important. For example, the Peel-listed players who played last weekend in their premiership alongside the Fremantle-listed players have not only had the opportunity to win a premiership – great for any player of any level, of course – but have experienced this alongside players from the actual AFL.
The above point can work concurrently with the senior players. For the Fremantle-listed players, while the senior team obviously had a shocker of a season, those who played WAFL have now experienced success, albeit at a lower level, but still success. Peel’s regular season and finals success not only provided them with the motivation to work hard, improve their footy and strive for success, but should hopefully provide them a boost going into the off-season. Similarly, the state-level success felt by the affiliates of the Bulldogs and the Giants also contribute to a culture of winning and success that all clubs hope to implement.
The affiliations can strengthen bonds between the different leagues. This argument is pretty self-explanatory, but it’s an important one. The affiliations allow for a closer partnership between the VFL/WAFL/NEAFL/SANFL and the dominant league, the AFL, which in turn provides for the conditions to grow teams and allow for greater experiences for players. This, in turn, provides a greater experience for the fans of the game, which can immerse themselves in the game from the roots to the top level.
Some critics may decry, as in the case of Peel’s success, a loss of WAFL credibility, and complain that state-teams have an unfair advantage. But that’s fundamentally untrue.
Teams like Peel may have a greater experience than their competition, but a vast majority of AFL-listed players playing in state-league teams are young and relatively new to high-level AFL football.
You won’t ever see a side of the Dangerfields, the Pendleburys, the Hodges and the Fyfes duke it out with a side full of non-AFL players.
Quite simply the collaborations mean that, as outlined in the reasons above, the close bond between the eighteen AFL teams and their state-level affiliates remains a vital cog in the mission to expand, improve and progress the game we all know and love.
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