MW wrote:Come out to local footy with your mates in an environment...without being crushed by ridiculous crowds.
Definitely 100% correct on that score. There is certainly no chance of being crushed, although that's because the attendances hardly fall within the popular definition of the term 'crowd'.
To be serious, yes, I agree there are some salient points you raise about the positives of the comp - family vibe, playing for the jumper etc. Mind you, I can watch lower grades and still see talented kids, and playing against an 18 year old AFL-listed draftee is hardly a marquee match-up. Seeing a part-time SANFL player line up against Taylor Walker will bring AFL acolytes through the gates, but is not a sustainable marketing strategy. As a footballing contest, top-flight AFL professionals coming back from injury vs SANFL part-timer is, you'd have to admit, a contest likely to be resolved in the former's favour.
Look, I'll tell you why we're all negative. Politics. In three years the product that the SANFL is peddling had dropped considerably, and those with a strong connection to it are concerned on a number of fronts. We might be dreaming, as we kept being told, but we want an AFL free comp administered by a governing body who cares about its long-term future. Not an SANFL pre-1991, that is gone. An SANFL circa 2013 that recognises its place in the footy world would suit. If you want to force change you want in the world, you have bring attention to it what you see is wrong. Sitting around telling everyone about the silver lining and positives that are largely outweighed by the negatives of inequity, integrity, and poor administration isn't going to achieve the results we want, no matter how valid those positives might be in and of themselves. The more we agitate and express our disenchantment, not just here in the echo-chamber of the internet but out in the real world, the more likely that seed might just germinate somewhere that starts the process that gets us a better outcome than the one we've got. Maybe that seed was sown on the weekend. Time (and Jars
) will tell. In the interim, we'll keep pushing our barrow.