The COVID-19 pandemic has had major impacts on the AFL landscape, that much is obvious.
A telltale of this incredulous season was the staging of all nine matches of Round 6 at venues that weren’t the home ground of either side. It has been a year that has seen tradition thrown out the window, with 16-minute quarters, rolling fixtures and talk of a grand final being played away from Melbourne for only the second time in the game’s 162-year history.
But amid the financial crisis that has struck our native game as a result of the pandemic, is a positive that has football traditionalists salivating – the return of the ‘seconds’.
As early as May 11 the AFL announced that no AFL listed players were going to be allowed to compete in State Leagues across the country, either for their AFL standalone side or affiliate clubs. Mainly due to the high risk of exposure to players outside the AFL bio bubble that we have become so accustomed.
This has seen the non-selected players from AFL lists take the field against their adversaries from opposition clubs in old fashioned ‘scratch matches’.
We first saw this when Richmond took on Collingwood on the MCG, a night before their senior sides marked the resumption of the 2020 AFL season 2.0. And such has the concept of a ‘hub’ become normality, so has the scratch match, often with reduced numbers of players, sometimes as little as 13 aside.
This is the first incarnation of proper AFL reserves we have seen since 1999, when Essendon took out the last ‘twos flag’.
Since then almost all clubs have struck relationships with sides in their respective State Leagues. But with all clubs bar St Kilda, Fremantle, Melbourne, Hawthorn and Carlton now having their own standalone sides in each competition, and taking into account the strong influence and funding models those clubs mentioned, have or recently had with affiliate State League Clubs, a return to a fully-fledged 18 side AFL reserves side must be on the horizon.
And what better time to re-introduce the AFL Reserves League than in 2021, off the back of the most incredible AFL season in living memory? It will not only allow State League Clubs to return to their former purpose of winning premierships instead of developing AFL rookies, but it will also bring an element of tradition back into our famous game.
Played as curtain-raisers to senior matches as well as an allotted number of games at the traditional suburban grounds, the league would return passion for the game often lost in today’s climate of holding the ball interpretations and score reviews.
Why not go a step further and have Sydney and Brisbane’s reserves sides compete under the banner of South Melbourne and Fitzroy respectively, and have them play four home matches a year in Melbourne?
And why not appease a certain breakfast TV host and allow Port Adelaide to wear black and white?
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