Putting price tag on WAFL

Has the WAFL got a deal for you.

For just $75,000 you and 21 others can throw on the footy gear and pit your skills against a band of State league players.

But wait, there's more. The scores don't count but you do get to play with a Burley, not a Sherrin.

That is the scenario being tossed around by some WAFL clubs as Fremantle and West Coast continue their push for local reserves teams.

Some clubs are coming around to the notion their teams can play the Dockers and Eagles seconds during their bye rounds. Funny how the bye - along with its creator Peel - was long despised by the old guard. Now there's a chance for some added revenue the rest week becomes a wonderful financial opportunity.

There is a push for WAFL clubs to seek $150,000 a season each from the AFL reserves deal. As some clubs could be restricted to two matches due to complexities of fixturing that figure can be broken down to $75,000 a game for some local league outfits.

As the average turnover of a State competition club is around $1.5 million, the AFL reserves licence fee would soon become a significant item on boards' balance sheets.

The figure thrown up by a few presidents is certainly larger than the $60,000 the two AFL clubs offered last year.

Now the WA Football Commission is facilitating negotiations it seems a WAFL-AFL arrangement will happen. It is now a matter of how and when.

Commission chief kicked key goals

The football merry-go-round has been in full swing over the past few weeks.

It almost seems there is a fixed pool of capable people at the higher levels of the game. And they jump from job to job. The names are the same, only the colours of their polo shirts change.

Yet there will be a significant figure missing from the top of the code next season. Not surprisingly, there has been little fanfare around his departure. Maybe if he worked for a club, not a State organisation, his legacy might be more prominent.

But it hasn't been Wayne Bradshaw's style to seek the limelight. And it is a trait that has served the local game so well for a decade.

When Bradshaw took over the reins of the WA Football Commission at the turn of the century the local industry was in great turmoil.

Tainted flags aren't black and white

Football is a team game. Matches can’t be won by individuals. However, a single person can greatly influence a contest.

It is all about the one percenters in the AFL and WAFL these days. Take the smother by Daniel Chick that set up West Coast’s match-winning goal in the 2006 grand final. And before that there was Leo Barry’s game-saving mark for Sydney in the previous premiership triumph.

When it comes to close matches – and the results of both of those big AFL days in September 2005 and 2006 were less than a kick – a single act can be the difference between elation and despair.

But what about if one of those significant efforts was produced by a player who has allegedly broken the rules to play?

It has become a trend in modern sport to talk about tainted premierships. Some have even suggested records should include an asterisk against particular champions because of the doubts about the condition of some of the personnel that were prominent in the success.

Victorian-based AFL critic Robert Walls wrote in The West Australian in 2007 that the Eagles’ premiership cup from the previous year was tainted because of the drug scandals, spearheaded by Ben Cousins, which had enveloped the WA club.

The same question was posed to Swan Districts this week following the revelation premiership player Travis Casserly had registered a positive drug test arising from last year’s WAFL grand final.