Bigfooty Media interview with USAFL\'s Dennis Ryan

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Bigfooty Media interview with USAFL\'s Dennis Ryan

Authored by: Brett Northey
on Tuesday, November 26 2013 @ 08:26 am ACDT

I liked Denis' thoughts about trying to encourage clubs to expand their metro leagues from 3 or 4 teams out to 8 to 10, making the parent clubs much bigger and more stable and putting out higher standard representative sides. It's always seemed like the natural next step that hasn't happened. Hopefully Denis can help unlock why not.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

Bigfooty Media interview with USAFL\\\'s Dennis Ryan

Authored by: Cam Homes
on Thursday, November 28 2013 @ 12:24 am ACDT

Getting that expansion out beyond the initial 3or 4 teams/clubs often seems to turn out to be big hurdle. The new team starting from scratch gets regularly flogged by the established teams and quickly kills off the enthusiasm of the new (especially new locals taking up the sport) team's players.

Denis won't be doing too much wrong if he takes a look at how Glasgow, in Scotland did it a couple of years ago, and/or Denmark and Japan this year. Three different tacks taken but each has appeared to be successful.

Denmark had plenty of players so they reduced the players-a-side from 16 to 12 and created two new teams at the same time. 8 teams at 12-a-side is the same number of players as 6 teams at 16-a-side so every body is assured of a game each week especially the fringe players and bench warmers that came over to the new teams.

In Japan this year the Tokyo Bay Suns (poached/signed) players from each of the other clubs in Tokyo. It looks a bit like they managed to pick the eyes from the other clubs because they have been extremely successful (have done a Western Wanderers, Sydney) and topped the premiership table.

Glasgow went the way of a pre-season Draft, but they also split the draft into expats and locals. They worked out how many teams they could make up from the number of players available and selected a Captain and a Captain's Mate for each team.

These guys then selected the players in the draft, but the locals were drafted first and when there no more of them the captains and their mate's could select the expats. It made for very equal ability teams and assured that all the players would get a game each week. From memory, they ruled that at least a minimum number of locals had to be on the field during the matches also. (Might have been women too).

A combination of these different tacks used could go down very well in USA with their metro footy.

ie. Do a Glasgow, then increase the players-a-side over a season or two and then do a Denmark (gets two new teams) or a Japan (one new side). Sounds bloody easy I grant you, but if it is all made public before embarking on it, it would build confidence that nobody is going to be hard done by or overduely favoured by the process.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

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