SA Footy

I did a ratio between players and games played in the VFL/AFL:

There were 11237 players and 12155 games played between 1897 and 2002.
This works out to a ratio of 0.9244755 players per game.

I transferred this ratio to all SANFL games from 1907, including all extra games counted from 1971 - Night Series, Champ. of Australia etc.
This totals 8250 games up to the GF of 2005.
Therefore using the above ratio there would be about 7627 players.

However, I would upgrade this to about 8400 or so, due to names before 1907 and the higher turnover of players.

I have made a revision on my estimate, by using the number of players and games that played in the VFL and the first year of the AFL in 1990.
I have noticed that the average number of games that players played up until 1990 was 38.72. In 1995 it had reached 40.09. In 2000 it was 42.08. Now at the end of 2005 it is 44.27. The reason being, of course is that players over the last 15 years can make a living out of the game at AFL level. Also, better treatments for injuries and the cap on how many players that can play in a season has increased this average. So, I'll use 1990s' ratio which is calculated as this:
10156 players divided by 10064 games = 1.01428 players per game.

Transfer this into the SANFL - 8250 * 1.01428 = 8368 players. This should be much closer to the actual players who have played in the SANFL between 1907 and 2005.