ADELAIDE coach Brenton Sanderson has reaffirmed the Club’s desire to field a reserves team in 2014.
From the moment Brenton Sanderson arrived at West Lakes in late 2011, he has talked up the advantages of having club-controlled reserves teams. Under the current system, non-selected AFL players must line up for their SANFL team, often under different coaching styles and in varying positions. Sanderson says this undermines their AFL development.
While not aware of the finer details of exactly how his reserves team would look and in which competition it would play, Sanderson said Adelaide was "a long way down the path" of establishing one.
"It's really important from my point of view as a senior coach. If we didn't get a reserves side up next year we would be, I think, the only team that doesn't send their players to one club," Sanderson said.
"It's massive, it really is. I've seen the Geelong model and the Geelong program works so successfully with the development of young players getting drafted and coming through their own system.
"What's important is that we can get our own team that we can actually try and fight that battle against Collingwood, Geelong, Essendon, those sorts of teams.
"I'm not sure where we're at with the negotiation phase of it, getting it up and running, but we'll almost certainly have our own team next year."
Sanderson's comments came a day after Port Adelaide declared it wanted the SANFL-based Magpies to become it’s reserves team in 2014.
On Tuesday, Power skipper Travis Boak echoed CEO Keith Thomas' claim that the club sought "to create a structure which enables every listed Port Adelaide player to play for Port Adelaide".
While Sanderson said he wanted his non-selected players challenged in the "strongest competition available" getting the team up and running was the focus.
"Ultimately we want our own team first of all and then which level they play at and which grade they play in is [second]," he said.
"The young kid (Tom) Mitchell, who played really well for [Sydney Swans] last week, his previous two games he had 56 and 52 possessions playing the NEAFL.
"That's the debate; where are our players going to learn the most and develop the most? But primarily it's 'get our own team first'.
"We want to play in the strongest competition available for us…I'm not part of the negotiation jigsaw at the moment, but there's some stuff happening behind the scenes."
