Crows and Power running on empty without reserves teams
Michelangelo Rucci
From: adelaidenow
October 31, 2012 7:09PM
PORT Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas has called for an urgent solution on giving the Power and Crows reserves teams after the SA-based AFL clubs were left on a limb today.
This follows WA-based AFL clubs West Coast and Fremantle today aligning themselves to WAFL clubs East Perth and Peel Thunder for five seasons from 2014.
Port and Adelaide are now the only AFL-based clubs without reserves teams or development teams under their control.
The Eagles and Dockers will each pay $450,000 a year to the WA Football Commission for this compromise to their needs for reserves teams. The $900,000 will be sent to the other seven WAFL clubs.
Thomas, who is in Paris ahead of Port’s pre-season clash with the Western Bulldogs in London, says the Power and Crows cannot put off the reserves debate any longer.
The clock is ticking against us,'' said Thomas. And we can’t allow that to happen - we can’t be left behind while every other AFL club has a reserves team or a development squad.‘’
Thomas is recommending the Power have all its excess players at the SANFL-based Port Adelaide Magpies.
He is prepared to consider the Power and Crows B teams playing in the SANFL reserves rather than the nine-team league competition.
“The question for SA football now is: Do we have the collective vision to find a solution for our AFL clubs and maintain the integrity of the SANFL?” Thomas said.
"If we can’t put our minds to it and find a solution we will have no alternative but to separate from the SANFL to place a reserves team somewhere else. From WA to Victoria, six clubs have this year decided to meet their needs for reserves teams.
“Meanwhile, in SA we’re still at the stage where we don’t want to talk about it. We have to find a solution.”
SA Football Commission chairman John Olsen tonight told adelaidenow there are two more pressing priorities for the SANFL.
“No.1 is the move to Adelaide Oval in 2014,” he said. "Then we have to resolve one way or the other if the (Crows and Power) licences are returned to the AFL.
"We’re shifting to a new oval and trying to find a new structure for SA football. We’re far more advanced than the West Australians on these issues.
"The West Australians have made an interesting decision - and we’ve been kept fully briefed by them.
“Whatever proposals we ultimately consider for the Power and the Crows, we will study the advantages and disadvantages in full and seek a decision that is in the best, long-term interests of SA football.”
Adelaide chief executive Steven Trigg said his club was considering the reserves option of setting up a competition between the Crows, Power, Eagles and Dockers B teams.
“That option is gone now and we will consider the others,” he said.
“But right now the big-ticket item for us is resolving how the licence is structured with the SANFL or AFL.”
