"PORT ADELAIDE THREATENS TO LEAVE SANFL"

Catchy headline.

On the agenda in the Port Adelaide Football Club boardroom the same topic would read: "Development program" - How to best underpin Port Adelaide's AFL aspirations.

Not so catchy.

But still serious - very serious.

No longer is the discussion around "identity" or "history". It is about the future. What is the best way to develop Port Adelaide's players? It is not a threat to the SANFL - it is a need to avert a threat to Port Adelaide's competitive status on the national stage.

For the umpteenth time in 32 years, Port Adelaide's presence in the SANFL - a State league competition it joined as a foundation club in 1877 - is up for debate.

Since 1997, when Port Adelaide entered the national AFL, there have been enormous challenges. It has hardly lived up to the "best of both worlds" theme presented at Alberton in 1995 when terms were struck with the SANFL as to how Port Adelaide would operate with two senior men's teams in two leagues.

In 1997 there was enforced separation - to the point Port Adelaide AFL and SANFL merchandise could not be sold at the same place.

In 2011 there was re-unification - One Club, two teams, one history.

The "best of both worlds" - as Port Adelaide imagined with a foot in each of the AFL and SANFL - was not living up to its promise at Alberton ... or Ethelton.

Speaking to former Port Adelaide president Brett Duncanson last month, he recalled: "It was just ludicrous. I still remember (Magarey Medallist) Scott Hodges deciding to return to Port Adelaide to play in the SANFL team - and one of our top-10 greatest players rolls up at Ethelton, running across a road to collect a football out of someone's front yard ... and going past a steel goalpost with no padding. I thought, 'These guys don't deserve this!' They should be at our spiritual home at Alberton. They should not have been disenfranchised."

In 2014 there was total consolidation - every Port Adelaide AFL-listed player stayed at Alberton for his SANFL duty rather than be farmed to the rival eight State league clubs.

In 2022 there is the question: What is best for Port Adelaide?

Port Adelaide president David Koch said on Adelaide radio last week: "We (and Adelaide) play under much stricter rules, as everyone would know, in the SANFL, than any other SANFL club.

"We’ve got to assess whether those rules allow us to develop our players the way that we want them to, and there’s, I think, question marks over that.

"The primary thing is the development of our players.

"If we are hindered by these (SANFL) rules, then we have to look at the alternatives. What is best for us?"

Port Adelaide was at the foundation table at the Prince Alfred Hotel when the SANFL was formed (as the SA Football Association) on April 30, 1877 to have one set of rules in a newly emerging game that was played to different regulations, ground by ground, club by club. The essence of the SANFL at its start was uniformity - and equality.

Port Adelaide lives to different rules by an AFL - rather than SANFL - salary cap. It works to different recruiting rules when compared with any of the eight stand-alone SANFL rivals. The "square peg in a round hole" continues ... There is no "blame game", just the reality that the SANFL might no longer meet Port Adelaide's needs.

The pressing question is, as Koch says, based on "the development of our players".

In 2014, this seemed answered by keeping every Port Adelaide player in the same program at Alberton - and playing in the State league to one playbook and one set of coaches.

Year on year - by the SANFL's own studies - it became obvious there is a tipping point to the competitiveness of the Port Adelaide (and Adelaide) SANFL team. Injuries take the Port Adelaide State league team closer to this tipping point ... and no longer is there an under-17 or under-19 or reserves team from where a local teenager such as Bruce Abernethy can be promoted after he finishes his English matriculation exam at Woodville High School.

Today, this system tumbles into the farcical, as was noted recently when Port Adelaide had only six AFL-listed players to field against the league-leading North Adelaide. A match decided by more than 100 points does not serve Port Adelaide's need in developing players - and it certainly does not serve the SANFL's wish to be seen as the best State league in Australia.

"The rules under which the AFL clubs compete in the SANFL mean our competitiveness is significantly impacted by the availability of AFL-listed players," club chief executive Matthew Richardson told members a fortnight ago. "This is not a new issue, but has become more acute due to AFL list sizes (reduced from 45 to 42) and the age profile of our list in recent years.

"That said, if we have a healthy list, we should be highly competitive at SANFL level."

Now - with the development question in mind - how does Port Adelaide ensure it has the capacity to overcome being left with just a handful of AFL-listed players on the SANFL selection whiteboard?

This might mean looking beyond the SANFL.

"We have been good at developing our young players (in the SANFL)," Port Adelaide senior coach Ken Hinkley said on Friday. "The challenge for us with the model we have today comes when we are stretched with injury. That makes the program harder to work.

"And that is because of the (recruiting) rules we work under. We work with the rules we have now.

"Simplistically, yes (it would be better for all 18 AFL clubs to have the same reserves model). But we also have this incredible history in the SANFL. We are very respectful of that."

Respectful, yes. But not trapped at the expense of giving Port Adelaide the best football program to succeed on the national stage.

Building the best AFL team - and the best AFL program - cannot be derailed by sentiment. Nor can the tail wag the dog - SANFL interests cannot over-ride AFL ambitions. Port Adelaide did not endure all it worked through from 1990 to 1997 to value an SANFL premiership more than an AFL flag.

The debate cannot be bogged down by asking: "If Port Adelaide is not in the SANFL where do we see the best jumper in Australian football?" The answer to that is in AFL Showdowns, being worn by the best of Port Adelaide in the best derby in Australian football. In all Showdowns. (Take note that in the non-traditional market of Sydney, the Sydney Football Club is mature enough to allow Greater Western Sydney to wear its charcoal guernsey in all Battles for the Bridge, regardless of which team is at "home" for the Sydney derby).

In handing his No. 17 jumper to future Magarey Medallist Peter Woite, 10-time premiership hero Geof Motley said: "Son, it is not the jumper who makes the player; it is the player who makes the jumper."

And at Alberton there is the pressing need for the best development program to make those players worthy of wearing whatever jumper Port Adelaide has in the lockers on any weekend.

Port Adelaide did not start in black-and-white in 1870. But in starting in the SANFL it did begin with the ambition to be the best football club in South Australia. Now that mission extends to Australia.

Ambition went beyond the SANFL in 1997.

So might the development of the Port Adelaide players. There is no threat. There is just the determination to build the best football program possible. No catchy headline - but a long, long debate looms in the Port Adelaide board room at Alberton ... and a few others while there is still the question of how best to structure Australian football from the elite of the AFL to the grassroots.