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The Adelaide Crows have announced that they will absolutely have a reserves team next year, but it will not be in the SANFL.
It looks as though the Adelaide Football Club will enter it’s seconds team into the SAAFL (South Australian Amateur Football League). Some would call this a win for the local leagues; a win for football tradition in a David and Goliath struggle.
But how short-sighted and narrow-minded can some people be?
I must admit off the bat that I am somewhat compromised in this argument. I am, since the age of three, a Crows supporter. I grew up with stories of Tony Modra’s high marks and great goal kicking all over the news, and vividly remember walking away from the TV in ’98, stating “That’s it, we’ve lost it,” and then crying my eyes out two quarters later with absolute joy.
However, I am also a proud South Australian. I’m a North Adelaide Roosters fan, which still pains my Dad who’s a Sturt man, and annoys my Grandad who’s a Woodville-West Torrens fan. And as such, I am immensely proud of having such a strong league right here in SA, where great players like Farmer, Robran, Ebert and Cornes made their names.
But I am also a realist. And reality bites sometimes, but one should never argue with it. If you ignore the realities of a situation, you are setting yourself up for disaster.
And the reality is the decision made by the Crows to not wait on and trust the result of a vote made by the SANFL clubs and instead make the move to a non-professional league is a bad decision- not for the Crows, who get their wish by having all of their clubs players together and playing regardless of their competition, but for the SANFL.
The Crows officially needed a vote of Yes from 6/8 of the SANFL clubs to succeed in their bid to enter a team (the Port Adelaide Magpies not being privy to such a vote due to their merger with the Port Adelaide Power), but announced that they would not imposition any club by accepting anything other than a unanimous bid.
With news coming through that three clubs have declared their opposition to the vote (Central Districts, Norwood, and WWT Eagles), the Crows have taken the decision making away from the SANFL.
For those of you celebrating a win for tradition, let me give you some reasons why this is a very bad thing.
Firstly, the financials.
The Crows reserves team would have played every game as the away team, and declared they would not make any money from any game played, essentially giving the clubs a twice a year free game. They would also guarantee a gift to each club of roughly $35k a year for 15 years. Struggling clubs like Sturt could really use that kind of cash!
The reserves team would also not be branded as the Crows, but instead have a new identity, with a unique Guernsey and sponsors, which gives greater opportunity for financial gain. New sponsors means greater corporate exposure, and more merchandise provides the opportunity for more money to be made and then donated to the league.
The next big issue for my mind is over players.
It’s understood one of the biggest sticking points for at least one of the ‘No’ camp clubs, Norwood, is the problem of top-up players. These would be players aged 18-22 borrowed from other clubs for an agreed period of time to fill up the inevitable holes that would open in the Reserves Teams list.
That’s understandable, fine. Clubs don’t wont players to leave their clubs and go to an AFL rival. Okay. But their happy with losing players to the amateur leagues?
The Crows taking their squad listed players out of the league means roughly 40 senior listed players, and seven rookie listed players would leave the league. That’s a big clutch of quality players just gone from the competition. Yes, the clubs would have lost these players to the Crows Reserves any way, but at least this would leave the players and their skills and abilities in the SANFL.
And this brings me to the biggest problem with the ‘No’ camp. They don’t seem to realise that the player drain which the SANFL is currently experiencing right now will only get a lost worse once the Crows are in the SAAFL.
Players are already jumping ship to play in country leagues for big money. Some are past it, and looking for a good pay check in return for a relaxed game of footy without all the training and semi-pro pressure.
But a lot of these players are still of high quality, and looking for a big pay check from cashed up country leagues. This is a serious problem for the league, and the situation has now become a hell of a lot worse.
The Crows take their players, including their SANFL regulars out of the comp. But they’ll still need players to fill up a full Reserves team.
If you were a young bloke, quite capable of playing good footy but you’ve missed your chance at being drafted, wouldn’t you be looking seriously for any back door into the AFL? Blokes in this position would be falling over each other to get out of the SANFL and onto the Crows Reserves list.
The clubs have guaranteed they won’t lose their players to a rival club. Good on ‘em. Instead, they have given the green light to players getting out of the SANFL.
The player drain will continue, and a massive cash injection and opportunities for greater corporate exposure is gone.
In five to ten years time, when we look at the state of the ‘best state league in the country,’ will we be looking at a league bereft of quality players? Will the struggling Sturt Football Club still be battling on? Will the games still be on free to air TV?
And will we still look back to this time and think “Well, at least we preserved tradition.”
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