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WillHayward said:
I legitimately don't mind the GWS and Freo songs.
Good muscular, traditional working class tunes.

[I think the Eagles and Suns have the worst songs]
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Freo's club son is appalling, should have co opted the South song. We're the Dockers, yes we are. We're the greatest, yes we are.

Bit of a lie and might have p*ssed of the East Freo people though.
 

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Rodney Dangerfield said:
My problem with that would be the lack of Perth in the talent pool more than anything else.
I agree to it in principal but I just think it’s stretched already.
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Hey, Rodney, hope you’re having a great year mate.

Not sure I’m reading you right, are you suggesting that a northern WA team is too much of a stretch on the local talent pool up north or more generally?

I can see both aspects, in the end it’s a pool of 150-200 players and long term it seems very achievable.

I would suggest we already missed the nationwide peak of total quality footballers back in the 70’s and 80’s. The era when virtually every boy had a crack at footy first and foremost in 4 very strong footy states. 2-300 ‘good enough’ players in the old VFL and I don’t think a pool of 400 from the rest playing at a similar level would have been an overestimate.

These days we very much have women’s and junior competitions to build from the ground up and no better base than from a regional AFL franchise.

A team in Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart, Launceston, NWA, FNQ, Canberra and two each in Adelaide and Perth would have been the ideal expansion way back when relocating South to Sydney.

JAKLAUGHING said:
PNG ought to be included in the FNQ Team...and some exhibition games ought to be trialled in NUzeelond for sussing out and/or growing an AFL interest there as wull!
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Hey Jak, yeah I like the idea of international draft zones. I’d like to see more cross over code players from international backgrounds.
 
Rayzorwire said:
Hey, Rodney, hope you’re having a great year mate.

Not sure I’m reading you right, are you suggesting that a northern WA team is too much of a stretch on the local talent pool up north or more generally?

I can see both aspects, in the end it’s a pool of 150-200 players and long term it seems very achievable.

I would suggest we already missed the nationwide peak of total quality footballers back in the 70’s and 80’s. The era when virtually every boy had a crack at footy first and foremost in 4 very strong footy states. 2-300 ‘good enough’ players in the old VFL and I don’t think a pool of 400 from the rest playing at a similar level would have been an overestimate.

These days we very much have women’s and junior competitions to build from the ground up and no better base than from a regional AFL franchise.

A team in Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart, Launceston, NWA, FNQ, Canberra and two each in Adelaide and Perth would have been the ideal expansion way back when relocating South to Sydney.



Hey Jak, yeah I like the idea of international draft zones. I’d like to see more cross over code players from international backgrounds.
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Cheers Rayzor you too mate.
Wow any wonder you didn’t quite understand where I was coming from, that should read lack of depth not lack of Perth!😂.
I like the idea of the more even draw I just feel the talent pool isn’t deep enough to have enough quality teams.
 
Rodney Dangerfield said:
Cheers Rayzor you too mate.
Wow any wonder you didn’t quite understand where I was coming from, that should read lack of depth not lack of Perth!😂.
I like the idea of the more even draw I just feel the talent pool isn’t deep enough to have enough quality teams.
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Well their is eye-lund, the good 'ol usa, P.N.G. nuzeelund, they will all have to dig deeper and develop more...
 
Rodney Dangerfield said:
Cheers Rayzor you too mate.
Wow any wonder you didn’t quite understand where I was coming from, that should read lack of depth not lack of Perth!😂.
I like the idea of the more even draw I just feel the talent pool isn’t deep enough to have enough quality teams.
Click to expand...

I think the long term goal should be to eventually draw much more of the draft pool from kids across the north.

The talent is there, the enthusiasm is there, it really seems that the present pathways and framework to develop northern juniors seems to produce way fewer potential AFL players than the raw talent suggests it should.

Having local national comp clubs up north is going to produce more footballers than it takes away in the long term I think.

Harder to make the same argument for Canberra and Tassie, but there’s some growth there too and the stronger states won’t have a shrinking future population.
 
WillHayward said:
I legitimately don't mind the GWS and Freo songs.
Good muscular, traditional working class tunes.

[I think the Eagles and Suns have the worst songs]
Click to expand...

I really like the "We're the rollers and the rockers ... we're the mighty Freo Dockers ..." bit, and reckon it's a shame the Freo players don't sing it.
 
WillHayward said:
I legitimately don't mind the GWS and Freo songs.
Good muscular, traditional working class tunes.

[I think the Eagles and Suns have the worst songs]
Click to expand...
I actually like the GWS song when it's sung by the players. The recorded version is balls, but when you remove the backing track and the Men's Rugby Choir, it comes up okay.
 

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Rayzorwire said:
I think the comp should be 23 teams with each team playing once over the old 22 rounds. One year home game, next year away. No exceptions for crowd pull.

A team for Tassie, the Territories, one for northern WA, one for FNQ.

I don’t buy the ‘lack the population to support a team’ argument, I think it’s logic based on faulty assumptions and a general lack of imagination.

It’s hard to argue that you can’t pack a stadium with a huge chunk of a region’s population after you’ve seen what happens in small town U.S. for American football or in parts of Latin America and Europe for soccer.

You’ve got to give the semi-interested a reason to go and make it a patriotic community event. Bus people in from everywhere. AFL subsidised school excursions and camps to games. Aim to get every single kid who wants to go to at least a few games a year and subsidise them if they want to attend all of them. You’ve got to start with a stadium that can fit grand ambitions.

Canberra aside - it’s a bit of a special case but the capital should have a team - the other four teams would be going into areas which need economic stimulus and have the kind of social problems which a local AFL team would be a positive force in addressing.

Whether or not enough direct economic return and indirect benefits can be generated by a genuinely creative expansion into these areas (I think you can make a strong case for the affirmative), the competition and the federal government can afford to subsidise them for the good of the game and the nation.

The AFL’s budget will have to flex a few % here and there for all kinds of things over the next decade or two, as will the federal government’s, it costs a relative pittance in the scheme of things to subsidise expansions done right.

I’m not remotely up to date on the finances of the Suns and Giants, but I imagine there’s a tidal wave of red ink annually and let’s face it, it’s not hurting the game in the scheme of things.

Numerous of the richer clubs and perhaps even others may be willing to pledge a small % of revenue just to even up the draw, let alone the social argument which can be made.

23 teams, perhaps a final 9, minor premier gets a genuine reward like the old days where one final win takes them straight to the GF.

It would take some serious creativity and imagination to plan and execute it well, that’s where the shortage is. Plenty of logical reasons for doing it, ample financial resources, obvious social benefits.

Bound to be unpopular. 😉
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Where would Northern WA play? Paraburdoo?
 
I think it's been raised before but I think they should do away with kids presenting the medals.
It's tacky and cheapens the award. They don't let kids hand out order of Australia medals.
 
tigerdan said:
I think it's been raised before but I think they should do away with kids presenting the medals.
It's tacky and cheapens the award. They don't let kids hand out order of Australia medals.
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If they must have kids involved, have them stand to the side to shake each persons hand as they go up, they can then be given a hat.

They certainly shouldn’t be handing out medals though.
 
Monjike said:
Where would Northern WA play? Paraburdoo?
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Christmas Island. It'll be the Government's attempt at lifting the spirits of the poor souls over there.
But it will also allow for the redirection of vital funds above the current $180M spent this year on the detention centre, to ensure that no one wants to come to Australia. Mostly due to the Gold Coast Suns playing against the North West Iron Ores
 
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