BY the time Port Adelaide officially took its place on the national stage in 1997, it had lost an AFL squad of its own making.

Among those taken away was even a "homegrown" No. 1 pick - the English-born soccer convert Clive Waterhouse, the unofficial symbol of every Port Adelaide-Fremantle encounter which will find its 45th chapter at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night.

Just in the 1992 national and 1993 pre-season drafts - that unfolded while Port Adelaide waited for the "second AFL licence" race to open in South Australia - 17 players were called from Alberton to the 15 national league teams.

Brett Chalmers to Collingwood as the No.10 pick (with a draft-tampering charge loaded into the moment). Shane and Troy Bond. The Wakelin twins. Future Port Adelaide AFL vice-captain Brayden Lyle. Che Cockatoo-Collins. Bryan Beinke. The list includes Port Adelaide's inaugural John Cahill Medallist and the winner of the first Showdown Medal, Darren Mead, who was drafted by Brisbane.

Significant players they are.

The drain continued ... and then in the late spring of 1995, less than 12 months after Port Adelaide had been granted the hard-earned AFL licence, the alarm bell rang loud. The proven development programs at Alberton gave the AFL's newest entry, Fremantle, its first draftee, Clive Waterhouse. In the mix was - to add to the pain - the Dockers could - and did - foolishly trade Port Adelaide SANFL premiership player Andrew McLeod to the neighbours at West Lakes.

"That," recalls inaugural Port Adelaide AFL chief executive Brian Cunningham, "was just one of many triggers that made us act."

When Port Adelaide was informed by the SA Football Commission in December 1994 that it would hold the second national league licence in South Australia the launch date for AFL entry was still 1996, a year after Fremantle's start. The delay to 1997 - while the Brisbane-Fitzroy merger took shape - meant more homegrown talent would be denied to Port Adelaide's eventual start-up AFL squad.

"And in 1995 we knew we had to start protecting our talent base in South Australia," Cunningham recalls. "It was just staggering the number of players being lost from the SANFL to the AFL at the time. The drain of talent from South Australia to the AFL was immense - and it underlines why we needed to be part of a national competition. To stay outside the AFL would have meant more and more players would have been lost from our backyard.

"The long list of Port Adelaide players is not without comparison to other SANFL clubs too. I spoke to the Eagles (SANFL, Woodville-West Torrens) past players last year about our progress to the AFL and presented the list of players taken from Oval Avenue to the AFL.

"Across the SANFL we were losing players hand over fist. And we needed to do something to protect our interests as an upcoming AFL club."

Cunningham calls its the Port Adelaide version of the well-known SANFL "player retention scheme" that was established by the South Australian league in the late 1980s to stop SANFL stars from following Craig Bradley, John Platten, Stephen Kernhan, Peter Motley et al to the expanding VFL after the exodus of 1985-86.

"Our club lawyer, John Firth," adds Cunningham, "put special contracts in front of six players.

"Warren Tredrea. Michael Wilson. Peter Burgoyne. Tom Carr. Brendon Lade. Roger James. There also was to be one for Stuart Dew, but as a 17-year-old he was still a year away from being eligible for the draft.

"The rest were draft eligible. They did not sign draft forms. They signed contracts to stay in the SANFL. And they were compensated with the salary any AFL first-year draftee would have earned as a base wage.

"It was a retention scheme just like the one the SANFL had initiated almost a decade earlier. Not a bad scheme either considering five of those seven were in our 2004 AFL premiership side - Tredrea as captain, Burgoyne, Wilson, James and Lade."

The AFL argued differently, ultimately handing Port Adelaide a fine of $50,000 for "draft tampering".

"Strange ... we were an SANFL club when we issued those contracts and we were fined as an AFL club when the AFL looked at the contracts," Cunningham says. "It was $50,000 well spent.

"Those signings set up our inaugural AFL squad. It was the foundation of our first AFL premiership. What would people be saying now if we had NOT done such? 

"That was a great spend of $50,000," adds Cunningham who would have spent 10 times as much to reclaim those seven from AFL rivals in trades - as became the case with those draftees lost in 1992-1995.

"It seems stupid that we were fined while we were an SANFL club ... we were not acting outside AFL rules. We were not subject to AFL rules as an SANFL club. We certainly were not the first club to offer an incentive to avoid the AFL, as the SANFL player retention scheme proves. Did the AFL fine any SANFL club for nominating a player to that retention scheme?"

Clive Waterhouse went to Fremantle after being part of Port Adelaide's 1995 premiership triumph. He was an instant cult figure at the West Australian club with whom he played 106 AFL games, kicking 178 goals, before returning to Port Adelaide as an SANFL player in 2005. He led Port Adelaide's SANFL goalkicking list in 2005 with 71 goals.

Clive was one who got away ... one of many. But some were those Port Adelaide did wisely hold at Alberton to build a premiership team.