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Another year, another SANFL thread - with the addition of the Leagues Championship Cup which I'm including in this thread because Centrals is going to win it.
A draft fixture sent to participating clubs reveals the 16 teams set to take part in the FA-Cup style competition next year featuring the best teams from state leagues around the country - plus the Giants.
Matches will be played as curtain-raisers to AFL Saturday night games and are set to be screened on Foxtel in a late-afternoon slot between afternoon and night AFL matches.
Prizemoney in the competition will be about $250,000, with $40,000 going to the winner, website sportsnewsfirst.com.au reports.
The round 1 Central v Ainslie fixture is going to be a blood bath! Reminds me of when I was talking to this bloke in Canberra wearing a Hawks polo. Imagine my surprise when the guy who I thought was a fat Hawthorn fan turned out to be a fat Tuggeranong Hawks fan who turned out to be a fat Tuggeranong Hawks player.
How did two AFLQ teams end up playing each other, that's a touch disappointing.
Will Central Districts or Woodville West Torrens rack up the bigger wins against Ainslie and East Coast Eagles respectively (I'm expecting Labrador and Clarence to keep it slightly more respectably)?
It will be an interesting test of standards and by that I mean the blood bath yob was referring to. The levels of fitness required in AFL (sic) means that professionalism makes a bigger difference than say, grade cricketers playing first-class players. Beastjim has mentioned well-coined players in Qld but I'm not sure NSW has the same thing. Unlike Qld, the local clubs to not have big pokie money behind them.
This new tournament is hardly a champions league, it's more of a Europa league where the best Of the second string sides square off. The AFL, being the only major league of its kind in the world, is basically the champioms league. It contains the 16 best clubs of the code in the world. As its slogan says, it's in a league of its own.
That being said, Collingwood are the world club champions of Australian Rules.
Might have to remove the Leagues Championship Cup talk from this thread after the top SANFL clubs decided that they couldn't be bothered with the competition, and thus West Adelaide, Port Adelaide and North Adelaide will be representing the SANFL.
Whole competition is laid out on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_Championship_Cup
I think the major issue is that they were simply too scared to compete. It may have destroyed their dreamy utopia that the SANFL was the best state league.
Probably affect the credibility of the comp within SA, but people outside SA wouldn't have a clue who the best SANFL teams are anyway.
Rob wrote:I think the major issue is that they were simply too scared to compete. It may have destroyed their dreamy utopia that the SANFL was the best state league.
Probably affect the credibility of the comp within SA, but people outside SA wouldn't have a clue who the best SANFL teams are anyway.
I thought it was more to do with the fact that there was nothing of value in it for them..the SANFL clubs & fans rightly value chasing the SANFL flag, not some half baked(at the time it had next to no substance to it) "curtain raiser to the AFL" tourney. I think the AFL were/are still shocked that someone actually manned-up and said no to them :0
LOL - champions of Australia and they think there's 'nothing in it for them'.
Nope, given every other club in Australia (and half the clubs in the SANFL for that matter) want to play, I think cowardice is the most likely reason why a few in Adelaide won't. They are simply scared of losing.
Although I doubt the AFL gives much of a sh*t either way.
"champion of Australia" you're havin a laugh mate, We all know the true champions of Australia are the winners of the AFL GF, not this comp no matter what spin the AFL puts on it. There's also that healthy "beware of Greeks(or Cypriot Australians) bearing gifts mentality that many here have of anything coming across from Victoria. Is this just the thin edge of the wedge in the AFLs plan to rebrand the SANFL and replace it with the blandly named AFL-SA?
We have the same deal with the NRL. St George-Illawarra were umming and aahhhing about going to Wigan for the World Club Challenge. They feared it would take away from their core business, defending the NRL Premiership.
The same can be said for these SANFL clubs. Their core business is the SANFL flag and they would not want to risk injuries etc. Short sighted of them IMO. To have the chance to put one over the other states is something clubs should not say no to. Look at the Champions League.
