On the back of a ripping start to the season by Sydney last night, let’s look at what at a NSW/ACT side might look like if the The Allies concept was abandoned – as it should be.

Full Back

Jack Buckley | Nick Murray | Callum Mills

Half Back

Zac Williams | Harry Himmelberg | Todd Marshall

Center

Harry Perryman | Errol Gulden | Isaac Cumming

Half Forward

Shaun Mannagh | Patrick Voss | James Peatling

Full Forward

Isaac Heeney | Taylor Walker | Lachie Schultz

Followers

Kieran Briggs | Jack Steele | Tom Green

Interchange

Jacob Hopper | Jarrod Witts | Harry Rowston | Campbell Chesser | Cooper Sharman

A Genuine Contender

Even to the naked eye, before any analysis, that team looks incredibly solid. It certainly challenges the premise for the The Allies concept: that the northern states couldn’t compete as standalone teams.

A Gulden, Green and Steele engine room delivering to a 600 goal veteran in Walker supported by one of the competition’s brightest young forwards in Voss. Himmelberg and Mills marshalling down back and Witts and Briggs sharing the ruck duties. With the right coach and buy in – that team could take it to anyone. To suggest otherwise reveals an alternative agenda.

What it Means for Australian Football.

Analysis of the spread of talent in the AFL is a dichotomous exercise. It reveals a duality that one can only assume exists by design. On the one hand, there is concentration of players from Victoria – still over 55% of the competition. On the other, it proves the expansion in New South Wales and Queensland has, in fact, produced fruit.

One wonders how much more prolific that fruit might have been if the competition was allowed to cleave from its possessive Victorian overlords and truly become national. Does the deliberate centralisation of the sport around Melbourne help or hinder it at large? And what might the landscape look like if it was allowed to mature? Hard to say, but it would include some incredibly exiting State of Origin carnivals, you’d think.

The AFL pays a lot of lip service to ‘growing the game’ in NSW and QLD. It’s a frustratingly disingenuous claim. First of all, despite the fact that it plays second fiddle to Rugby League, Australian Football has been part of those states for over a hundred years. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t introduced to the locals by the VFL in the 80s. Thus, the claim that the sport needs to be ‘grown’ in those places is revisionist and misleading. It ignores the true history of the sport, a history that does not suit he AFL’s modern agenda.

Secondly, it screens the reality that the AFL’s administrative style actively oppresses any potential growth of the sport in those areas. Even while they vociferate about the value of their work in the northern states.

Much of that is part of a larger conversation that we will undertake here on Thebarton Enquirer over the coming months. For now, a word of warning: don’t be fooled. A NSW/ACT State of Origin team would clearly hold its own against Victoria.

Next, Queensland.