Swans to "Win" 5 more Flags?

**R-1** · 28th June 2014, 12:59 PM

Someone on Bigfooty suggested what I think is a very fair way of looking at it - the concept of defining "first class premierships".

We're currently treating the administrative history of the league body which runs the game now as equivalent to the history of our sport. This is because the AFL tends to blur its two functions. The AFL both runs the top league and is also the top level guardian and representative of the sport. Combining the two roles creates an unrepresentative version history for the pre-1980s era.

Firstly, the three state leagues were all close enough in standard to beat each other in representative footy. Sure, players went to the richer VFL but the three competitions had some rough parity for most of their history. As the only entity to transfer from another state league, Port really serve to bring the tension into relief. It's too simplistic to say they began in 1997, they gained that spot as the only standalone club to make a transition *because* of their dominance in another. Clearly they are an entity that existed before 1997 and it's really just plain ahistorical to keep a history of top level Australian football that does not acknowledge their historical success at all.

So it makes sense to take a view which is more holistic in its view of the sport, a view which includes the top levels of our game over its entire organised history. This is similar to how Superbowls only started in 1967 but the NFL counts both AFL and NFL titles as "league championships" prior to that era. American football thus talks about, for example, the Browns having a championship drought back to 1964 even though the Superbowl didn't start til 1967.

In our Australian context, we never had a national competition prior to the 1980s and so there's no strict analogy with American or European sports. Instead we had premier state leagues. Bringing all this together, the suggestion is we use the logic that initially the state leagues were equal but at some point the VFL/AFL supplanted the VFA, SANFL and WAFL as the premier competition. Easiest cutoff is when the VFL/AFL entered that state. We thus call the following "first class premierships":

VFL/AFL is first class from 1897.
VFA until 1897 is first class.
WAFL until 1986 is first class.
SANFL until 1990 is first class.

That leaves a table that looks something like this table. (there's a couple mistakes in this table by whoever made it, but bear with me)

Other cutoff points are arguable of course. 1987 or 1982 as a blanket for WAFL and SANFL perhaps. Or the mid 1970s when representative football switched to state of origin rules. But the principle, I think, is sound. AFL/VFL history is NOT the history of top level Australian football and our 1933 flag doesn't really have more intrinsic worth in the history of Australian football than West Torrens or East Freo winning in the same year.

**bodgie** · 28th June 2014, 05:10 PM

Interesting chart that makes some sense. When I first read this thread I thought it was yet another Victorian claim to ownership.

**dimelb** · 28th June 2014, 05:22 PM

I confess I hadn't thought about it very much, even while reading about the Swans' history, but I think it would be a good idea to implement some such system. I think it would go some way to clarifying that AFL is a national game and to curtail the Victorian sense of ownership which we still come across occasionally - e.g. I think it is partly responsible for Eddie's latest brain-fade.

**bodgie** · 28th June 2014, 05:32 PM

The other interesting thing I see is that the WAFL and SANFL had some very dominant teams more so than the vics (little 'v' intentional), so state of origin style SA and WA could get competitive teams together, but the VFL pool of talent was a lot deeper.