So at best, we were 1/2 a State team?
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Were West Coast really a 'state team' in the early 90s?
- Thread starter Matchu
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So at best, we were 1/2 a State team?
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Actually, apart from the later generous concessions, the VFL acted counter-intuitively in those times when their intention was was to restrict West Coast. They aided them by only allowing them to replace delisted squad players at the end of each year with players under a certain age (I think it was 21yo). It forced them to pick young players like Waterman, Watters, McKenna etc - and this became the blueprint for drafting as we know it now. At one point they ended up with 7 players from their winning WA Teal Cup U18's team from 1985.
This makes perfect sense in todays context, if you were to think about any current AFL side with the best players from the best U18's state team all drafted to the same side, but if you look at the players that were drafted in the early drafting years it was skewed more towards mature body players, bigger bodied players that had played against men in the state leagues and who could adapt to playing on the heavier grounds in Melbourne.
For the most part, with the exception of 1991, West Coast found it difficult to win in Melbourne in the early years, even against the low ladder VFL teams, playing on away suburban grounds - but on the flipside those big bodied VFL sides would come over to WA in April and August and find themselves cooked and run off their feet after half time in relatively mild mid 20C's heat.
Teams started drafting players from u18's trying to catch up to West Coast - and ground rationalisation in Melbourne, as well as the entry of more interstate teams played a part in drafting players who could run rather than slog it out on a muddy ground.
This makes perfect sense in todays context, if you were to think about any current AFL side with the best players from the best U18's state team all drafted to the same side, but if you look at the players that were drafted in the early drafting years it was skewed more towards mature body players, bigger bodied players that had played against men in the state leagues and who could adapt to playing on the heavier grounds in Melbourne.
For the most part, with the exception of 1991, West Coast found it difficult to win in Melbourne in the early years, even against the low ladder VFL teams, playing on away suburban grounds - but on the flipside those big bodied VFL sides would come over to WA in April and August and find themselves cooked and run off their feet after half time in relatively mild mid 20C's heat.
Teams started drafting players from u18's trying to catch up to West Coast - and ground rationalisation in Melbourne, as well as the entry of more interstate teams played a part in drafting players who could run rather than slog it out on a muddy ground.
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Forward Press
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A good point, as many have pointed out in this thread West Coast were almost a prototype for GWS. Recruit a whole bunch of talented kids and hope that more often than not they turn out good.
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Matchu,
In 1996 between uncontracted player selections, pre-draft zone selections and ND/PSD/RD picks, Port Adelaide selected 17 players who had already or would go onto play 100+ AFL games. Twelve of these played 100+ games for Port (bolded) and 9 featured in the 2004 GF.
Were Port retrospectively gifted a state team?
Uncontracted players: Wanganeen, Primus, Heuskes, Cummings
Pre-draft zone selections: Eagleton, Harley, P Burgoyne, Dew, Francou, James, Lade, Mead, Tredrea, Wilson, Biglands.
ND: Kinglsey
PSD: Paxman
In 1996 between uncontracted player selections, pre-draft zone selections and ND/PSD/RD picks, Port Adelaide selected 17 players who had already or would go onto play 100+ AFL games. Twelve of these played 100+ games for Port (bolded) and 9 featured in the 2004 GF.
Were Port retrospectively gifted a state team?
Uncontracted players: Wanganeen, Primus, Heuskes, Cummings
Pre-draft zone selections: Eagleton, Harley, P Burgoyne, Dew, Francou, James, Lade, Mead, Tredrea, Wilson, Biglands.
ND: Kinglsey
PSD: Paxman
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- #105
Well considering West Coast had six bites of the WAFL cherry between 1986-1991 and Port had just one bite of the SANFL cherry in 1996, my early guess would be no but let's see. SA state teams:
1997 SA state team
Adelaide: 6 (Bickley, Hart, D.Jarman, Modra, Pittman, Ricciuto)
Brisbane: 1 (Clarke)
Carlton: 2 (Bradley, McKay)
Collingwood: 1 (Russell)
Essendon: 1 (Wellman)
Hawthorn: 2 (Holland, Platten)
Melbourne: 1 (Viney)
Port Adelaide: 7 (Bond, Heuskes, Lade, Lyle, Mead, Wanganeen, Wilson)
Sydney: 1 (O'Loughlin)
1998 SA state team
Adelaide: 8 (Bickley, Goodwin, Hart, James, D.Jarman, Rehn, Robran, Smart)
Carlton: 1 (Camporeale)
Collingwood: 1 (Burns)
Hawthorn: 1 (Holland)
North Melbourne: 2 (Pickett, Pike)
Port Adelaide: 4 (Eagleton, Francou, Lade, Tredrea)
Richmond: 2 (Daffy, Rogers)
St Kilda: 2 (Sziller, Wakelin)
Sydney: 1 (O'Loughlin)
1999 SA state team
Adelaide: 7 (Edwards, Hart, James, Ricciuto, Robran, Pittman, Smart)
Brisbane: 2 (Clarke, McRae)
Carlton: 3 (Bradley, Camporeale, McKay)
Essendon: 1 (Wellman)
Footscray: 1 (Darcy)
Hawthorn: 1 (Holland)
North Melbourne: 1 (Pickett)
Melbourne: 1 (Viney)
Port Adelaide: 3 (P.Burgoyne, Francou, Mead)
Richmond: 2 (Daffy, Rogers)
St Kilda: 1 (Wakelin)
I think it would be hard to argue based on those teams that Port Adelaide was gifted a state team but let's keep going. State games stopped in 1999 which makes this really difficult. It's really hard to compare West Coast in the late 80s/early 90s to Port Adelaide post 1996 because the Crows existed and had a lot of the SA talent in their team already.
The biggest difference between the two clubs was the fact that Port had one shot at assembling their SANFL contingent in 1996 where as West Coast had six shots at WAFL talent between 1986-1991. If the same thing happened to West Coast, they may have never acquired guys like Ball, Jakovich, Kemp, Langdon, McKenna, Pyke, Sumich, Turley, Turnbull, Waterman and White. Who knows the kinds of players Port would have recruited if they had similar concessions to West Coast. Matthew Pavlich in 1999 comes to mind...
It either shows the SANFL was bursting with talent in 1996 (doubtful considering the Crows had existed for five years by that stage) or Port Adelaide made the most of extremely limited concessions and managed to develop many champion footballers with a very limited recruiting window.
I think it's pretty obvious that West Coast had far better concessions when it came to recruiting their state's best talent but you be the judge.
Jesus, all of this makes it sound like there was no football talent outside of Western Australia. Are we the centre of football? I think so. Grand Final at Subiaco next year 
Good thing too. A straight man needs some good comedic relief. Oh the players Fremantle could've had but they pissed it away.
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Spot on! Our list would have been so much better if we had instead picked some of the duds that West Coast drafted with their early round picks between 1995 and 2000. Shane Sikora, Ashley Blurton, Jeremy Dyer, Luke Trew, Craig Smoker, Jonson Clifton, Josh Wooden, Jaxon Crabb, Callum Chambers, Todd Holmes, David Antonowicz, Brandon Hill, Michael Obrien, Travis Gaspar, Kane Munro, Andrew McDougall.
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- #111
I can't tell if you're trolling because if you had actually read this thread then it wouldn't be hard to answer your own question. Anyway, here's the answer:
West Coast's 1992 premiership team
Michael Brennan (1986 WAFL exclusive access)
Tony Evans (1989 draft pick 64)
Paul Harding (1991 traded from St Kilda)
Brett Heady (1989 draft pick 92)
Glen Jakovich (1990 pre-draft selection)
Dean Kemp (1989 post-draft pick)
Dwayne Lamb (1986 WAFL exclusive access)
Karl Langdon (1987 WAFL exclusive access)
Chris Lewis (1986 WAFL exclusive access)
Chris Mainwaring (1986 WAFL exclusive access)
Peter Matera (1989 draft pick 4)
Ashley McIntosh (1989 father-son selection)
Guy McKenna (1987 WAFL exclusive access)
Don Pyke (1988 pre-draft selection)
Peter Sumich (1988 pre-draft selection)
Craig Turley (1988 pre-draft selection)
Chris Waterman (1987 WAFL exclusive access)
Mitchell White (1990 pre-draft selection)
Peter Wilson (1989 traded from Richmond)
John Worsfold (1986 WAFL exclusive access)
- Players in bold were selected by West Coast before any other club could access them.
All those duds and still made grandfinals in 05 and won it in 06. Has to sting
Didn't Port players not nominate for the draft and wait a year so they could enter the league with port?
What was the basis for the exclusive access?
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- #115
I can't definitively say one way or the other because I don't 100% know but it wouldn't surprise me if some didn't nominate with the hope that they could stay in SA the following year. Port had just come off a second consecutive SANFL premiership in 1995 and the AFL licence had already been granted, it was just a question of when Port would enter. Having said that, if you go back and look at the 1995 draft you'll find the 1st and 11th picks both came from Port Adelaide. Another two Port players were also drafted that year so clearly not every Port player got the memo about skipping the '95 draft.
While we're at it, let's look at how many '04 premiership players from Port were chosen by the club before any other club had access to them:
2004 Port Adelaide premiership team
Matthew Bishop (1999 traded from Melbourne)
Dean Brogan (2000 rookie draft pick 26)
Peter Burgoyne (1996 SANFL exclusive access)
Shaun Burgoyne (2000 draft pick 12)
Josh Carr (1998 draft pick 7)
Domenic Cassisi (2000 draft pick 50)
Chad Cones (1997 draft pick 9)
Kane Cornes (2000 draft pick 20)
Stuart Dew (1996 SANFL exclusive access)
Damien Hardwick (2001 traded from Essendon)
Roger James (1996 SANFL exclusive access)
Adam Kingsley (1996 draft pick 37)
Brendon Lade (1996 SANFL exclusive access)
Josh Mahoney (2003 pre-season draft pick 12)
Brett Montgomery (1999 traded from Footscray)
Byron Pickett (2002 traded from North Melbourne)
Jarrad Schofield (1998 traded from West Coast)
Toby Thurstans (1998 draft pick 39)
Warren Tredrea (1996 SANFL exclusive access)
Darryl Wakelin (2000 traded from St Kilda)
Gavin Wanganeen (1996 uncontracted signing)
Michael Wilson (1996 SANFL exclusive access)
- Players in bold were selected by Port Adelaide before any other club could access them.
So 7 of 22 (31%) for Port's '04 premiership team came from players that were picked before any other club could access them. Nothing like the 14 of 20 (70%) West Coast had in '92.
The fact that they were a new team based in WA? I'm not sure of the point you're trying to make here...
Not trying to make a point. You say exclusive access, how was it exclusive? What rule was in place to say only West Coast could have these players. I am curious.
I will point out however that almost all of those highlighted players would have been 18-19 years old when selected. How many do you honestly think would have been picked up by other clubs in those days?
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- #117
Your team being renamed to the Cockburn Dockers?
There has always been concenus that the Eagles were a state team, watch those 3 movies someone linked on the previous page, it is a myth.
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My understanding is it went like this for West Coast:
1986 - Exclusive access to WAFL players to form the 35-man inaugural list.
1987 - Exclusive access to WAFL players.
1988 - Five pre-draft selections to be used on WAFL players. West Coast's list was expanded in this year and other clubs were now allowed to draft WAFL players again but no other club had pre-draft selections like the Eagles.
1989 - Two pre-draft selections to be used on WAFL players and three post-draft selections to be used on WAFL players. The Eagles also drafted their first father-son pick in this year.
1990 - Two pre-draft selections to be used on WAFL players.
1991 - One pre-draft selection to be used on a WAFL player.
Then the Eagles were like every other club and could pick players outside of the WAFL. The first thing they did was package up Begovich and Watters in return for Sydney's no.1 pick. So they actually went from the cream of the WAFL crop from 1986-1991 to the best pick in the country in 1992 but that's fair because any other club in the AFL could have traded with Sydney for that pick.
How can I possibly answer that last question? It's so subjective. Just because teams would often draft older players in the 80s doesn't mean they would have passed on a guy like Jakovich in the 90s. We'll never know.
Not really but from memory Malthouse coached their state side and Eagles around this time so naturally seeing as Eagles players already played together a lot of them were picked. But they were a good side around early 1990's anyway so not real surprise. A few probably got games simply for ease of team synergy but Eagles in themselves were not a state side. I barely remember Vic sides then but was becoming increasingly hard to get the best 22 of Victoria play together so we probably had teams that were not really strong as we could be. I reckon we lost a few games then as so many better players did not take part. I reckon 1989 was about the only time I saw a Big V side close to full strength. Some of sides of 1980's were more of the top players but in 1990's Vic based clubs started influencing many players to not take part and save themselves for club football. In 1980's I think they did it to a lesser degree. I went to one or two state games in early 1990's but always felt 8 to 10 of best players were unavailable. This is part of reason it died off because playing during the proper club season become more and more difficult to schedule and get clubs allow their players to take part. I've always thought it should have been done in March when clubs only playing practice matches anyway. That is what the AFL should have done but failed to act. Now we have no state of origins which is a shame as when they were near full strength in early 1980's they were truly exciting football games to watch. Getting home on Tuesday arvo to watch Big V take on WA at Subiaco were some sensational clashes. The 1990's never had the atmosphere any more. Sad the AFL kept trying to play it mid season and should have played it pre-season based on squads picked from form of season before.
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But you're happy to argue that West Coast was gifted a state team because we had ~50% of the state side in some seasons years after inception?
Port had one shot with a full list and were then adopted into the AFL system with access to players from anywhere via the draft. West Coast were not. We started with 37 players and built up to 52 over a period of a few years.
Guys like Kemp, Langdon, Pyke, Sumich etc. were all 17/18 in 1986. Given that we were already forced into drafting kids because all the best senior players had already gone, if we had access to a full list we would've probably ended up taking these guys earlier - at the expense of the WAFL, which is a big reason why restrictions on our list size and VFL clubs taking one WAFL player each were in place.
Bolded is key, but does it not also apply to West Coast? Had our entry not been delayed, we probably would've signed guys like Peter Wilson, Nicky Winmar etc. and left the 17/18 year olds we took in the WAFL to develop while we were stronger on field. Had our list size been 52 from day one we may have just drafted a heap of the same players anyway. We're no different to Port in that the best guys we took we took very young and then they turned into stars.
Now I don't think Port were gifted anything. I think that Port and Freo entered right into the transition period where clubs were starting to really take the draft seriously through drafting the best kids and mature age talent in the state leagues was thin. I don't think either would've been powerhouses with preferential access to SANFL/WAFL players for a couple of seasons at the expense of being initially excluded from the draft.
By the same token I don't think West Coast would've been a powerhouse with picks 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9 etc. in the 1986 draft because it was such a gamble back then.
Ask yourself this, who had the better concessions out of GWS/GC and West Coast/Adelaide? Two different eras, two different sets of concessions. Freo did make some curious decisions early on but I think the entry of them and Port to the AFL went the smoothest of all the expansion clubs as both clubs started, were competitive and transitioned into the system of the day. Port only took a year longer to win a flag than we did (would've been sooner if not for Brisbane and choking) so the concessions can't have been that bad.
Depends on your definition of "State" team. Considering you had 50% of an actual state team at inception and then priority access to the whole state of WA for six years, you'd say that's pretty close to being a State team. Myth - Plausible rather than confirmed, definitely not busted.
Forward Press
Hall of Famer
It's much less than 50% though. Of the inaugural list of 35, 10 played in the State of Origin game the year before (less than 30%), and only one actually played in a premiership side five years later.
I think what Matchu is more focused on is the pre-draft picks in subsequent years, and although they were picks from a WAFL already ravaged by Victorian clubs, retrospectively they are generous concessions, and I can agree to that.
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No its not, by its own definition half is not close, its only half way to something....90% is close.
10 was half a team/side in 1987, almost more than really. 20 a side and only 2 on the bench and it was only used for injury or the coach being really pissed off. How can you expect to judge the whole list of 35 when only 20 get picked for the actual "state" team each year?
Again, depends on what you mean. If you say that the Eagles got a state team from inception then you would be wrong. The fact that they got 1/2 a state team and then six years of priority access to the State's best youngsters is the main reason I argue they had a state side or the equivalent of a developing one. Sure, they don't get rights to retain everyone and some slip through the cracks, but they did have the opportunity to draft anybody they wanted from WA during that period - hence the reason fans say you were given a State side.
The Eagles made the best of the cards dealt to them.
The Dockers probably didn't get as good a hand and what they did get they cocked up.
Don't see why the Eagles should have to somehow feel unworthy of the flags they won because they made the best of things.
The Dockers probably didn't get as good a hand and what they did get they cocked up.
Don't see why the Eagles should have to somehow feel unworthy of the flags they won because they made the best of things.
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