Junior Player Zones

[Adelaide Swan]

I was having a peek at the AFL NSW/ACT website and found the junior player zones for our academy and the GWS academy.

Who was the idiot that zone virtually 80% of NSW to GWS.

AFL NSW/ACT: Sydney Swans/GWS Zones

If I were Richard Colless, I'd be absolutely filthy about that.

It virtually means if anybody comes out of country NSW they'd go to the Giants.

To me that is an absolute disgrace and unfair on us.

[wolftone57]

KR the Western half of the state is very sparse on population. I know I come from there. So if you cut the State in half down the middle you would find 95% of the population in the Eastern half. A little more troubling is the metropolitan zoning as it would seem that the majority of land and population would be designated the GWS. The North of the State is also far more populated than the South so in all the Country zones will probably work population wise. For instance Newcastle and the Central Coast are high density population areas.The one problem I have is that the South tends to be more AFL friendly than the North even though that is slowly changing.

[Adelaide Swan]

KR the Western half of the state is very sparse on population. I know I come from there. So if you cut the State in half down the middle you would find 95% of the population in the Eastern half. A little more troubling is the metropolitan zoning as it would seem that the majority of land and population would be designated the GWS. The North of the State is also far more populated than the South so in all the Country zones will probably work population wise. For instance Newcastle and the Central Coast are high density population areas.The one problem I have is that the South tends to be more AFL friendly than the North even though that is slowly changing.

I wasn't very happy when I found out the Riverina and Wagga areas were given to GWS.

Those areas are NSW's football heartland and any potential champion from that area will now play for the Giants.

Thank goodness the Giants weren't admitted years ago as we wouldn't have had club legend Paul Kelly in our colours.

Like I said, I would've thought Richard Colless and our academy coaches would've kicked up a stink about that.

I think it's very unfair on us.

I think we've been treated like second class citizens by the AFL with the introduction of the Giants.

[jono2707]

I think it sucks too - most NSW kids with real potential come from either the Riverina or somewhere in Sydney (with a few notable exceptions such as Craig Bird). As such we have been dudded out of a good source of talent being the whole southern part of the state, plus also the ACT, which at least in the short-to-medium term is a real problem.

I wonder what, if any, power the club has to lobby for this to be changed sometime in the future. I think it would also be interesting to hear people's opinions on whether this really is an issue anyway, given the national nature of the game and the broad range of places we have sourced our squad from.

[Auntie.Gerald]

i cant read the two sydney insets >?

can anyone?

it appears north shore and northern beaches and maybe eastern suburbs ??

and south sydney to cronulla ??

[707]

Even with these zones I don't think we've had any trouble filling our Academy with kids across all age ranges.

I think that the zoning may have been initially biased towards GWS in order to get them competitive as a club from a starting start.

Once they are going nicely in 5-8 years time, the zone borders should probably be revisited.

Remember, GWS will cost the AFL $10-15 million per year for a generation so they will be given advantages over us ..... that's life :-(

[stellation]

I think that the zoning may have been initially biased towards GWS in order to get them competitive as a club from a starting start.

Once they are going nicely in 5-8 years time, the zone borders should probably be revisited.

Basically exactly what I was going to say, so I shall add this instead; excellent comment, 707!

[Wardy]

Even with these zones I don't think we've had any trouble filling our Academy with kids across all age ranges.

I think that the zoning may have been initially biased towards GWS in order to get them competitive as a club from a starting start.

Once they are going nicely in 5-8 years time, the zone borders should probably be revisited.

Remember, GWS will cost the AFL $10-15 million per year for a generation so they will be given advantages over us ..... that's life :-(

Exactly - life is very different in every way now to what it was when the Swans came up here - so it may not be to everyone's liking, but if the game is to expand, there has to be alot of coin thrown in from control headquarters and concessions made. Those who keep yelling from the roof tops that its grossly unfair etc etc are starting to sound like Eddie McGuire who never stops complaining about hard done by Collingwood are -think about that!

[Wardy]

I was having a peek at the AFL NSW/ACT website and found the junior player zones for our academy and the GWS academy.

Who was the idiot that zone virtually 80% of NSW to GWS.

AFL NSW/ACT: Sydney Swans/GWS Zones

If I were Richard Colless, I'd be absolutely filthy about that.
It virtually means if anybody comes out of country NSW they'd go to the Giants.

To me that is an absolute disgrace and unfair on us.

As I posted in another thread the Swans have known about GWS for about 5 years - and for about 3 of those years they did absolutely nothing about it to the point it was like "if we ignore it it will go away" it was head in the sand type of stuff - well the AFL were true to their word that they were going to come into sydney's west. The Chairmans luncheon I went to in 2007 it was mentioned virtually just in passing with the "it wont happen" tone about it - how wrong can yer be!

[wolftone57]

i cant read the two sydney insets >?

can anyone?

it appears north shore and northern beaches and maybe eastern suburbs ??

and south sydney to cronulla ??

Yes the South & West to them the East and North to us.

[Big Al]

Exactly - life is very different in every way now to what it was when the Swans came up here - so it may not be to everyone's liking, but if the game is to expand, there has to be alot of coin thrown in from control headquarters and concessions made. Those who keep yelling from the roof tops that its grossly unfair etc etc are starting to sound like Eddie McGuire who never stops complaining about hard done by Collingwood are -think about that!

+1

Couldn't agree more with this and 707's post.

[wedge.maverick]

It appears from GWS' list that they are far more interested in giving out big contracts to players from rival clubs than they are developing their zone. Hopefully Harry Cunningham will be proof of that.
I would think that we would have far more NSW players on our list currently than GWS who had the whole of NSW to pick from the past 2 seasons.

[wolftone57]

GWS have 7 lads from NSW/ACT in their squad. We on the other hand only have 6. They will probably look at developing their zone when they get established. They have to put a team on the paddock this year and try to win some games. I don't begrudge them concessions all teams got them when they first came in. We got them on a few occasions, firstly when we came up here and then when the good Doctor sent us broke. I need to be fair but it doesn't apply to other RWO members you can hate them already. I think for AFL to survive it needs to have these new sides in Sydney and Gold Coast. It also needs to develop markets in China, Africa and Canada. Europe and South/Central America are hopelessly Soccer. The others are ripe for the picking as are other Asian nations like Korea.

[Cheer Squad]

+1

Couldn't agree more with this and 707's post.

Of course you agree - you're a member of both clubs!

[stellation]

Of course you agree - you're a member of both clubs!

I'm not a member of both clubs and I agree with 707's post.