Manly

[The Student]

You'll be disappointed to learn that teams have already been announced some weeks ago, Mug Punter. Sydney Uni are one of them.

2014 North East Australian Football League (NEAFL)
? Aspley
? Redland
? Southport
? NT Thunder
? Brisbane Lions
? Gold Coast Suns
? Ainslie
? Belconnen
? Eastlake
? Queanbeyan
? Hills Eagles
? Sydney University
? Sydney Swans
? UWS Giants

Bummer

[justabaraker]

AFL foots bill for all teams travel and expenses for away games

I didn't know that Chatto - will the AFL's generosity continue next season under the altered format ?
If not, then I reckon a club would need a poker machine club dedicated purely to generating cash to pay for travel and expenses ! And that's not a good business model for growing our game.

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But I think this thread has been sidetracked away from Manly where it is meant to be.

I join the others in congratulating Manly on what they've achieved this year already. I saw them play once this year and the way they conducted themselves on and off the field was a real credit to them all

[Coastal Boy]

PK, I don't think we need to limit opportunities for clubs to add or subtract teams or go up or down divisions as needed. Lots of clubs have benefitted from this.

However, maybe the moons are aligning with the stars or something I don't know, but it seems a return to a traditional structure would not detract from the evenness of each division.

But I must emphasis there must be exceptions possible(ie Balmain and campbelltown 2s at present) and promotion must be considered for teams dominating their division (ie undefeated or smashing all and sundry) and relegation for those spiralling downward.

However I think you'll find most necessary movements in the past have involved first grade teams playing in lower divisions rather than a club's 2s or 3s. I don't think a traditional structure would involve much movement at all once set up.

I just want to emphasise that any club who falls on hard times should have a dynamic comp structure to assist them (which was not available before) and a traditional structure should include this. A return to the old structure would be a backward step. Maybe somewhere in the middle is the answer.

[Mug Punter]

You'll be disappointed to learn that teams have already been announced some weeks ago, Mug Punter. Sydney Uni are one of them.

2014 North East Australian Football League (NEAFL)
? Aspley
? Redland
? Southport
? NT Thunder
? Brisbane Lions
? Gold Coast Suns
? Ainslie
? Belconnen
? Eastlake
? Queanbeyan
? Hills Eagles
? Sydney University
? Sydney Swans
? UWS Giants

Bummer

What a smug self-entitled prat you seem...

Enjoy getting your butts kicked in this league. You produce no juniors and pinch players from other clubs that spend years developing those players. You have substandard facilities and your response is to going into someone else's territory and take theirs.

You are completely out of your depth and I'd say you are odds on for the spoon next year. I don't think you are overly missed by the other SFL clubs and I also suspect many other readers here snigger with your pathetic attempts to compete at the level you seem to believe is you god given right.

Enjoy Student. Enjoy playing in a comp no one cares about and where no one watches you (in Sydney anyway). Your club is a monument to the ego and self-importance of its administrators

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I think Blacktown should be given a crack at Div 1 with their current and future list, but I'm not sure who to bring back to Div 2....

Mac Uni had a horrendous back end of the season and despite their early form and bravado lived up to my prediction of being a club on the slide both on and off the field.

Their U18s are tenuous and you'd have to think they'll be back as a two team club next year (plus the chicks).

Must understanding is that very few old boys are connected with the club these days, largely as a result of the way the Uni destroyed their history with the Kookas being banned and Uni wide "Warrior" branding that was introduced.

They are a resilient mob and have endured many lows over their existence but you'd have to think they are the next candidate for a relegate-and-rebuild operation...

[Pekay]

PK, I don't think we need to limit opportunities for clubs to add or subtract teams or go up or down divisions as needed. Lots of clubs have benefitted from this.

However, maybe the moons are aligning with the stars or something I don't know, but it seems a return to a traditional structure would not detract from the evenness of each division.

But I must emphasis there must be exceptions possible(ie Balmain and campbelltown 2s at present) and promotion must be considered for teams dominating their division (ie undefeated or smashing all and sundry) and relegation for those spiralling downward.

However I think you'll find most necessary movements in the past have involved first grade teams playing in lower divisions rather than a club's 2s or 3s. I don't think a traditional structure would involve much movement at all once set up.

I just want to emphasise that any club who falls on hard times should have a dynamic comp structure to assist them (which was not available before) and a traditional structure should include this. A return to the old structure would be a backward step. Maybe somewhere in the middle is the answer.

If there was a club that has been able to survive due to the current flexible structure, it's my club. This time last year we had all three grades in finals. How time changes! We now have just one grade in Division 3!

My original post was drawing from the hypothetical, because if next year this structure suggested in the OP was introduced, we'd be in the Division 3 with a single grade at this point. As I've said before, there isn't much coming into the RAAF Base in terms of potential players, there seems to be more leaving of late. Until 2014/15, when the new aircraft is brought in, we won't see many new faces coming in. So we will have to retain what we have, hopefully pick up a few more. Considering we have 6 blokes on the north side of 30 in this years squad, they can't run around forever, and eventually will be forced out of a 1st Grade team by the many talented kids we have at Bensons, which is for the better.

Should this structure be introduced, we could drag enough cattle together to put a ressies team in and have blokes back up like the old days. Under the current structure, we'd need at least another 30-40.

[mountainsofpain]

I was and am a strong advocate for the restructure as it saved the bacon of many clubs, ours included. But, I just keep coming back to this model and think yes it is time to go back to this.

Isn't the suggested structure simply the old structure re-badged to reflect the current standing of clubs? (With promotion/relegation thrown in as a sweetener?).

I was chatting to the Gosford bloke I was playing on yesterday, and I asked if they were going to push for two teams next year. He mentioned it wasn't an issue of numbers for two teams, but more a stretch of resources, which under the current structure, would be impossible if they were split from week to week. I miss having our reserves upstairs at Bensons screaming slander at players from both teams.

Adding extra sides under the old system meant finding extra resources as well. Particularly those clubs which added sides that competed outside their first/reserve grade structure.

I think if Gosford have the players they really need to not let the difficulty of finding support staff stop them from fielding another side. I am sure one of the reasons they came to Sydney football was to try to grow their club, in which case they knew exactly the setup and competition requirements when they came down here.

As for the bolded, I don't quite understand. Even under the current setup, you would have had quite a number of games at home with both First and Reserve Grade playing. How many times did it occur in 2012? It's when you are travelling that the split of sides is more likely to occur, not at home.

Perhaps next year it's time to start again, and I think your model has tremendous merit. If you are one of those clubs that didn't win a flag during the restructure (Yes, my club is one!) well tough eggs, you had your chance. But to see a club like the Riff, from 2009 where they finished near the bottom of Div 3, to where they are now on AND off the field, has shown that divisionalisation has worked for the better. In my opinion anyway.

Does the proposed system hold us in best possible stead going into the future though? Sydney Football is still growing and will probably continue to do so. The current system is arguably the best one to accommodate that.

Out of interest, and as an example, if Nor-West found itself in this year's situation again (let's hope not!) with only the one side, would you be happy as a club to be playing in the "bits and pieces" proposed Div 3 comp as you did a few years back? (Sort of answered in your subsequent post below, which wasn't there when I posted this!).

My original post was drawing from the hypothetical, because if next year this structure suggested in the OP was introduced, we'd be in the Division 3 with a single grade at this point. As I've said before, there isn't much coming into the RAAF Base in terms of potential players, there seems to be more leaving of late. Until 2014/15, when the new aircraft is brought in, we won't see many new faces coming in. So we will have to retain what we have, hopefully pick up a few more. Considering we have 6 blokes on the north side of 30 in this years squad, they can't run around forever, and eventually will be forced out of a 1st Grade team by the many talented kids we have at Bensons, which is for the better.

Should this structure be introduced, we could drag enough cattle together to put a ressies team in and have blokes back up like the old days. Under the current structure, we'd need at least another 30-40.

Yours is probably a unique situation for the Western Suburbs clubs, in that you don't draw from a big population area and have to rely on the RAAF for many of your players. (Despite your best efforts to do otherwise - eg with name changes, looking to expand your area, etc). Clubs like Penrith, Liverpool, Parramatta, etc are differently placed.

I find the bolded interesting though. I would have thought having blokes doubling up week in, week out would be the last thing a club wants to do. And I'd argue the necessity to do that was because of the old system as much as anything - ie because the old SFA was so difficult for a WS club to be successful in that attracting new players (or getting past players to return) was often a problem.

Would you not want to aim for fielding two senior sides free of having to do that?

[Pekay]

Isn't the suggested structure simply the old structure re-badged to reflect the current standing of clubs? (With promotion/relegation thrown in as a sweetener?).


Adding extra sides under the old system meant finding extra resources as well. Particularly those clubs which added sides that competed outside their first/reserve grade structure.

I think if Gosford have the players they really need to not let the difficulty of finding support staff stop them from fielding another side. I am sure one of the reasons they came to Sydney football was to try to grow their club, in which case they knew exactly the setup and competition requirements when they came down here.

As for the bolded, I don't quite understand. Even under the current setup, you would have had quite a number of games at home with both First and Reserve Grade playing. How many times did it occur in 2012? It's when you are travelling that the split of sides is more likely to occur, not at home.


Does the proposed system hold us in best possible stead going into the future though? Sydney Football is still growing and will probably continue to do so. The current system is arguably the best one to accommodate that.

Out of interest, and as an example, if Nor-West found itself in this year's situation again (let's hope not!) with only the one side, would you be happy as a club to be playing in the "bits and pieces" proposed Div 3 comp as you did a few years back? (Sort of answered in your subsequent post below, which wasn't there when I posted this!).


Yours is probably a unique situation for the Western Suburbs clubs, in that you don't draw from a big population area and have to rely on the RAAF for many of your players. (Despite your best efforts to do otherwise - eg with name changes, looking to expand your area, etc). Clubs like Penrith, Liverpool, Parramatta, etc are differently placed.

I find the bolded interesting though. I would have thought having blokes doubling up week in, week out would be the last thing a club wants to do. And I'd argue the necessity to do that was because of the old system as much as anything - ie because the old SFA was so difficult for a WS club to be successful in that attracting new players (or getting past players to return) was often a problem.

Would you not want to aim for fielding two senior sides free of having to do that?

Of course, the aim is to have two sides that are self sufficient, but in the event that we are short one week or the next, we can use cattle from the other grade.

I more meant that I mean having our twos upstairs this year. We had quite a few instances, almost every home game last year where we were at Bensons back to back, and even had the Cessnas on as well, so the crowd upstairs was more than healthy! It's what we want to return to, whether it will happen next year remains to be seen.

If it's a bits-n-pieces comp we end up in, so be it. As long as we stay afloat and I have somewhere for the boys to play. There really aren't any of our boys seeking a higher level of competition than what we are playing in now, they love the culture and country feel of our club. We are a tight unit.

[mountainsofpain]

Of course, the aim is to have two sides that are self sufficient, but in the event that we are short one week or the next, we can use cattle from the other grade.

I more meant that I mean having our twos upstairs this year. We had quite a few instances, almost every home game last year where we were at Bensons back to back, and even had the Cessnas on as well, so the crowd upstairs was more than healthy! It's what we want to return to, whether it will happen next year remains to be seen.

If it's a bits-n-pieces comp we end up in, so be it. As long as we stay afloat and I have somewhere for the boys to play. There really aren't any of our boys seeking a higher level of competition than what we are playing in now, they love the culture and country feel of our club. We are a tight unit.

Gotcha. I misunderstood.

It wouldn't be the same just having the one game at a venue, no doubt.

[Pekay]

Gotcha. I misunderstood.

It wouldn't be the same just having the one game at a venue, no doubt.

We get a few of our old boys up there having a drink, and some of the injured cattle week to week, but nothing replaces the 22 odd blokes from the previous game. I love that about Bensons, the clubhouse is right on top of the 50 arc.

[BIGSHOW]

We get a few of our old boys up there having a drink, and some of the injured cattle week to week, but nothing replaces the 22 odd blokes from the previous game. I love that about Bensons, the clubhouse is right on top of the 50 arc.

Mate you have a good bunch of blokes out there and deserve the success that the jets have achieved this year and with the younger boys coming back from the Balmain Shockers next year I'm sure that you will have two sides again.

[The Student]

All that you had to say was "gee, I didn't realize that they'd already made the decision on which teams were involved in the NEAFL so thanks for the update. Boy, don't I feel silly for giving a thousand words of my precious and important opinion about who should and shouldn't be involved in a competition, that by my own admission nobody cares about, when all I had to do was go onto the NEAFL website and have a look to see what had been decided weeks earlier."

To be honest your petty jealousy of Sydney Uni says more about you than it does them. Nobody at the club cares what you think. Surprising, I know! Maybe you should stick to rambling on about Div 1 or whatever it is you have some knowledge of, because you clearly have very little of the NEAFL, Sydney Uni or anyone involved with the club. Keep going with the personal slights though, it does a lot for your credibility (what little you have left, that is).


xox

[Pekay]

Mate you have a good bunch of blokes out there and deserve the success that the jets have achieved this year and with the younger boys coming back from the Balmain Shockers next year I'm sure that you will have two sides again.

We've done better than expected this year, but I'll be happy to win again this weekend! We are looking forward to the challenge.

I know the Johnston boys are keen to return, didn't really enjoy their time down at Balmain, but I'm told the Cass boys will be at East Coast, or Sydney Hills, or the Pepsi Eagles or whatever they will be called next year. Josh wants a crack at NEAFL and I saw recently that Jesse will be training with the Giants NEAFL squad, so good on em.

[ShortHalfHead]

From the number of players I hear that are bailing from the SHEgirls next year, they will both have no trouble making their NEAFL team. Pekay would be in line for captain/coach and I'd probably squeeze into the 22, despite the fact I haven't ever played the game.

[The Student]

Do you know why that is? Guys are sick of the travel?

[justabaraker]

All that you had to say was "gee, I didn't realize that they'd already made the decision on which teams were involved in the NEAFL so thanks for the update. Boy, don't I feel silly for giving a thousand words of my precious and important opinion about who should and shouldn't be involved in a competition, that by my own admission nobody cares about, when all I had to do was go onto the NEAFL website and have a look to see what had been decided weeks earlier."

To be honest your petty jealousy of Sydney Uni says more about you than it does them. Nobody at the club cares what you think. Surprising, I know! Maybe you should stick to rambling on about Div 1 or whatever it is you have some knowledge of, because you clearly have very little of the NEAFL, Sydney Uni or anyone involved with the club. Keep going with the personal slights though, it does a lot for your credibility (what little you have left, that is).


xox

I wish I could do a "LIKE" for this post, Student. But I don't know how to do it.
Nice work anyway

You know what they say:- .......drink.........type..........bloody idiot...........