If the Eagles had never come in

[MortlockWatcher]

Unfortunately a little Victorian fairy tale spun by Albert to save face. The decline he eludes to was caused in large part by the VFL's open check book policy which peeved off the public in all three footy heartland states.

WA and SA because of the talent drain to the east and the Vics because of the uneven playing field, IE some teams had all the star players while the others had to struggle on by developing the home grown. Easy to fix the half forward line by buying a "Steve Kernahan" or a half back "Robert Klomp" from SA. (I'd mention some notable WA stars here, but not sure of their spelling.) Anyway there were heaps from both states and that found their way onto VFL club lists.

The common belief that the WAFL and SANFL were weaker than the VFL is a Victorian pedaled furphy.

Yes this was driving the VFL broke as the less affluent clubs tried desperately to keep up. The expanded VFL and draft was designed to reign in this reckless and uncontrolled spending as it was destroying the VFL competition from within. State of Origin was the ultimate price paid, because the Vics needed to have the VFL to be seen as the undisputed premier competition in the land and that format, (State of Origin) was debunking that myth and also bank rolling the impudent defiance of the minnow states, in their, (VFL's) desire to attract as many of the best players at the best price as possible.

That's why Adelaide got into the AFL ahead of the Port......giving up the SANFL retention fund, which Port had no control over, and was paramount to achieving that overall aim.

I never seem to remember much of an outcry in Melbourne about the 'open cheque book' policy, but being a Carlton supporter I was naturally in favour of it.

Having seen footage of WAFL and SANFL from that era at the time, I was one in the vast minority that thought the other two leagues were of a similar standard - SoO proved this and parochialism blinded many Victorians.

I thought that the drafts were brought in to equalise the competition, especially when Brisbane joined the VFL, more so than rein in spending (that is what the salary cap was brought in for).

 

[SgtSchulz]

Brilliant thread.

And it wasn't the West Coast Eagles fault that a true national competition didn't develop.

It was the decision by the VFL to withdraw from the NFL Wills Cup in 1977.

"After the success of the 1976 competition, particularly for television numbers, VFL withdrew its teams from the NFL's night series, and established its own rival Night Series based at VFL Park in Melbourne. This caused a rift between the VFL and the other states." - Reliable Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Night_Series

 

[DAT8]

Unfortunately a little Victorian fairy tale spun by Albert to save face. The decline he eludes to was caused in large part by the VFL's open check book policy which peeved off the public in all three footy heartland states.

WA and SA because of the talent drain to the east and the Vics because of the uneven playing field, IE some teams had all the star players while the others had to struggle on by developing the home grown. Easy to fix the half forward line by buying a "Steve Kernahan" or a half back "Robert Klomp" from SA. (I'd mention some notable WA stars here, but not sure of their spelling.) Anyway there were heaps from both states and that found their way onto VFL club lists.

The common belief that the WAFL and SANFL were weaker than the VFL is a Victorian pedaled furphy.

Yes this was driving the VFL broke as the less affluent clubs tried desperately to keep up. The expanded VFL and draft was designed to reign in this reckless and uncontrolled spending as it was destroying the VFL competition from within. State of Origin was the ultimate price paid, because the Vics needed to have the VFL to be seen as the undisputed premier competition in the land and that format, (State of Origin) was debunking that myth and also bank rolling the impudent defiance of the minnow states, in their, (VFL's) desire to attract as many of the best players at the best price as possible.

That's why Adelaide got into the AFL ahead of the Port......giving up the SANFL retention fund, which Port had no control over, and was paramount to achieving that overall aim.

Yeah I am sick of everyone harping on that the "VFL" was the strongest league when the SANFL and WAFL were actually equally as strong yet still get zero recognition

 

[Silent Alarm]

Brilliant thread.

And it wasn't the West Coast Eagles fault that a true national competition didn't develop.

It was the decision by the VFL to withdraw from the NFL Wills Cup in 1977.

"After the success of the 1976 competition, particularly for television numbers, VFL withdrew its teams from the NFL's night series, and established its own rival Night Series based at VFL Park in Melbourne. This caused a rift between the VFL and the other states." - Reliable Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Night_Series

Interesting.

Pretty obvious that a champions league format was becoming all the rage. Sport in the 70s and early 80s was pretty interesting and pivotal to its development. There was a real thirst for sport at that time, especially footy – I mean you've got regular state seasons, night series' which get these big crowds, Origin, all sorts. They were all drawing attention and crowds and once you put some money into it with television...

In some ways, with Sky in the UK basically incentivising the Premier League, World Series Cricket, later the Super League in rugby, it's bizarre that a competition's lack of money was what created a national comp – everywhere else, it was TV promoting this premier, elite, slimmed down break-away format. In some ways it's very enviable that these leagues, especially the VFL so staunchly, not want to risk the chance of this and withdrawing to purify their own competitions. Obviously it's resulted in a skewed AFL now, but naturally, we would all look after our own interests – the WAFL and SANFL would've loved to stay 95% as they were and have 10 interstate clubs join them.

Would have been incredibly interesting if the NFL was somehow bought out by a Packer-like consortium in the 1980s. Play all games on 9 and then later privately on pay-tv. Maybe Grannies over at Waverley. Maybe invitations sent out to all clubs like the Super League, with two or three from each state coming aboard and fresh, homogenised franchises coming in to fill out a 10 team competition, then it swelling and expanding as pay becomes too good to refuse.

But then, in some ways, if we only have 8 original, traditional, important clubs playing in a premier competition in 2015, the league would feel a lot less historical.

You could imagine the state leagues being as they are now, a little demoted, but then you could also imagine plenty more just going bust completely – especially in the late 80s when half these clubs were cooked financially. That little bit of breeze from an NFL Super League would've blown over so many clubs we're lucky to still have exist today.