A few years ago now I was advocating doubling the salary cap in the SANFL. But there's no way you could think of that these days with the finances of the SANFL looking very unhealthy. Abolishing it completely will lead to clubs going bust or being uncompetitive.

However, we need something. If there is no clear jump in standard from SANFL to the lower levels then the SANFL will fold pretty quickly. Without trivialising the problems regarding players drifting away from SANFL (or never arriving at SANFL) for easy money with less commitment in the country, it does need to be kept in some kind of perspective. Players have always done it; and whether the rate of it is increasing, is more of an impressionistic thing than something easily quantified. (You can count the ex-SANFL players on official 'out' sheets who've gone to country clubs, but you'll never count players from the country who may have been approached by a SANFL club but decided not to come.) I don't think anyone would doubt the result if the best country club in the state played the wooden spoon SANFL club. The substantially higher standard of the SANFL league comp isn't only achieved by taking the same standard of players and flogging them for 5 days/nights a week instead of 1 or 2 nights in the country. You're also starting from a base of more talented players, most of whom (i.e. the 7th-to-21st best players in a club, not the stars) are attracted by the higher standard (and the carrot of AFL interest if they're good enough) rather than principally by $ signs.

One thing that is a truly terrible idea, is abolishing the SANFL reserves. Having U/18s that flow through reserves ultimately to league, in the same club wearing the same jumper, is the lifeblood of the competition. Talented U/18s, slim to no chance of getting drafted, and not yet a realistic chance of getting picked in the league squad, would be lost to the system and a fair proportion would never come back without reserves. In the middle of the year, it's a real feather in the cap of U/18s who are performing well for them to be called up to reserves; motivating them to come back and train in the summertime once they're 19 or so.

This is a point that has been overlooked in the whole AFL reserves debate. The real death of the Port Adelaide Magpies as a SANFL club, is not about 15 or so SANFL league-standard (or fringe) players who played for them in 2013 who won't be there in 2014; nor is it about where 10 or so AFL-listed players will be playing their SANFL. It's that from 2015, the tap for future talent flowing through to the Magpies reserves and ultimately league, has been turned off. And the pipes will be dug up and carted away.

All good now

Something different:

At least you'll have a flash new clubrooms with a fancy set of fu***ng gates!

Popcorn in the Microwave, Norwood forums to resemble Arsenal TV in 5,4,3,2,1 ....

Should have taken Eric,
pretty much a waste of time,
Chandler & Duldig & the lady from Strut think the SANFL is in a great position, TV ratings are up (doesn't get people to go to games though),
it seemed like we pretty much have the AFL in our comp., they are our overlords & we will do whatever they say they want us to do.
I brought up the farcical match at Woodville Oval at 7.40pm, CD v PA, 650 people, crap time etc etc, they just smiled & shrugged.
I told them to raise the salary cap,
they said some clubs won't be able to afford it,
I told them to expect more players to leave the SANFL to play country,
I mentioned admission charges & why can't the clubs drop the admission fee when there's a match when there will be a small crowd, they didn't think this was an issue, the lady from the rich suburbs didn't think it was a big deal,
I told them that from lower socio-economic areas it's a huge issue, they suggested more people need to become members??

We're screwed.

Thanks for having a crack….much respect

Sorry bit off topic and I may have missed this somewhere else, does anyone know what happened to the Redlegs Talk forum?

Closed down unfortunately. The guy running it had enough from what I understand.

There is the Facebook site which I dont think much of and apart from this site there is BigFooty which has very good write ups of the games.