No stars left from South Australia

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Why isn't South Australia producing stars anymore?

Champion South Australians since the mid-80s – Kernahan, Bradley, Jarman, Platten, McGuinness, Rehn, Modra, Ricciuto, Goodwin, Edwards, Hart, Smart, Pickett, Tredrea, Wanganeen, Cornes, Burgoyne, Cooney, Enright, Pavlich. Includes four Brownlow medallists from the last 30 years.

Cooney, Enright and Pavlich have retired meaning the best South Australians in the AFL – its only genuine stars – are Wingard, Neale and Gibbs, not counting the soon to retire Burgoyne, Thompson and Griffen.

The majority of the premiership winning Crows and Power teams were South Australian. Now, only one of the Crows – Brodie Smith - and three of the Port B&F top 10 – Ebert, Broadbent and Westhoff - were locals.

Lots of solid contributors from SA including Jacobs, Vince, Mackie, Puopolo, Varcoe, Laird, Pearce, Thomas, Davis, Edwards and Grundy. But most of these are close to retirement too.

The real worry is when you look at the South Australians chosen in recent drafts, the situation is only getting worse. Excluding the 2015 draft because it's too early to judge, and accepting that 2009 draft potential stars Trengove and Menzel have suffered injury, apart from Wingard and Neale there's virtually no star potential since then in the early rounds of the draft from 2010.

  • 2010 - Sam Day #3, Jared Polec #5, Daniel Gorringe #10, Seb Tape #13, Brodie Smith #14, Scott Lycett #29, Patrick McCarthy #34, George Horlin Smith #37

  • 2011 - Brad McKenzie #18, Alex Forster #29, Mitch Grigg #41, Sam Rowe #44, Nicholas Joyce #46, Jordan Murdoch #48

  • 2012 - Jimmy Toumpas #4, Sam Mayes #8, Troy Menzel #11, Brodie Grundy #18, Ben Kennedy #19, Tim Broomhead #20, Tim O’Brien #28, Brodie Murdoch #40, Matthew McDonough #42

  • 2013 - Matt Scharenberg #6, James Aish #7, Luke Dunstan #18, Sean Lemmens #27, Trent Dumont #30, Malcolm Karpany #31, George Hewett #32

  • 2014 - Sam Durdin #16, Harrison Wigg #35, James Rose #37, Declan Hamilton #39, Alex Neal-Bullen #40
The 2016 draft shapes up with the strong possibility of no South Australians going in the top 20 picks according to the experts.

My question is what's happening in SA? Is this the bad part of the cycle or this this the new normal? Do South Australians really want to watch local teams made up of Victorians?
Eddie betts is a star and is SA through and through
 
Brodie Grundy could finish 2017 as an All-Australian or at least the 2nd best ruck in the comp in my opinion.

Wingard needs a full season and he can alsi return to his elite best.

Sure, SA SoO wouldn't come close to WA/Vic right now, but it's not cause for concern.

I don't know who out of those guys played SANFL seniors before being drafted but considering a few do, maybe they are put into seniors too early and that holds back their development if they get injuries?
 
Says the bloke from Werribee.
This was a good thread until the dialogue read like it was posted in Bay 13. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. So my two bobs is that I drove through that suburb Bolivar once. I was heading up North. Bolivar stinks worse than Werribee. Ergo, Werribee>Bolivar. Port Adelaide isn't far from Bolivar either... both s**t holes. One figuratively, the other literally.
 
This was a good thread until the dialogue read like it was posted in Bay 13. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. So my two bobs is that I drove through that suburb Bolivar once. I was heading up North. Bolivar stinks worse than Werribee. Ergo, Werribee>Bolivar. Port Adelaide isn't far from Bolivar either... both s**t holes. One figuratively, the other literally.

Bolivar and the surrounding areas like St Kilda and Globe Derby aren't really proper residential surburbs, certainly nowhere near the scale of Werribee in that regard anyway. Probably a few hundred people total living there, if that.
 
Bolivar and the surrounding areas like St Kilda and Globe Derby aren't really proper residential surburbs, certainly nowhere near the scale of Werribee in that regard anyway. Probably a few hundred people total living there, if that.
Yes, but the suburbs immediately east of Port Wakefield Road are. I would hate to live in a suburb like Paralowie/Burton in summer with a hot north westerly blowing. I was filling up at BP servo en route to the Flinders Ranges and the smell after a gust blew through was that bad the missus and I were nearly dry retching.
 
Yes, but the suburbs immediately east of Port Wakefield Road are. I would hate to live in a suburb like Paralowie/Burton in summer with a hot north westerly blowing. I was filling up at BP servo en route to the Flinders Ranges and the smell was that bad the missus and I were nearly dry retching.

I'd hate to live in those places too and the Bolivar s**t Farm would be a long way down the list of reasons.
 

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I think we need to slowly build up those industries of the future that the pollies keep talking about. The closure of the car industry and associated businesses will land a punch in the nuts to an economy that's already the worst in Australia. Reducing unemployment in SA is a long-term project, and a few hundred billion dollars from that nuclear dump and more affordable electricity wouldn't go astray.

Getting back to footy, you'll note that there are almost no South Australians in the national cricket sides. The Redbacks have been the worst Shield side for 20 years. Perhaps the SA sporting culture has some sort of problem. But the more likely explanation is the less dramatic one: it's just a statistical cyclical coincidence.

National cricket cycle is fairly logical - South Australia only has 5% of the national population and Adelaide is too big on its own to benefit from the the large regional town/small city advantage in sports
 
Soccer clubs popping up everywhere, so many kids playing soccer in SA now.
 
drinking too much farmers union

images
 

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