Mining WA footy heartland could be a solution for a debt-riddled AFL club.

Regional Western Australia has produced a plethora of top-level talent from footy legend Barry Cable, indigenous icon and gun Nicky Winmar through to more recent products like West Coast’s Jeremy McGovern, Lewis Jetta and Fremantle’s Connor Blakely to name a few.

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Despite fingerprints across our top competition, regional WA has been snubbed by the AFL in recent years for showcase fixtures.

On this week’s episode of The Duff and Quarters podcast chief footy writer Mark Duffield and The Sunday Times sports editor Glen Quartermain think back to the last time an AFL affiliated game was played in Bunbury, WA’s fourth-largest city, and argue there’s plenty of opportunity for a cash-starved AFL club in the South West.

“Bunbury should bid for an AFL team and they should try and get a team like St Kilda to split it’s home fixtures between Bunbury and Melbourne,” Duffield said.

“I remember (Carlton v Fremantle preseason game) in 2009, there were about 10,000 people at Hands Oval.

“St Kilda is the most debt-riddled club in Melbourne, the AFL had to put to put in $20 million to St Kilda, that was a couple of years ago.”

If a Melbourne club played a portion of ‘home’ games at their second base in the South West, member exemptions for away fixtures in Victoria would mean eastern Saints fans would still see as much of their team as they currently do.

The South West has a population of around 200,000, Duffield argued the facilities to accommodate an AFL side would be supported by the government if the league backed the move.

“You get the infrastructure with the games, Duffield said.

“If you said to the government we want to play seven St Kilda home games in Bunbury and you play two away games in Perth and most of your other away games in Melbourne.

“Your Melbourne members would still see the same amount of games as the Bunbury members.

“Bunbury is only marginally smaller than greater Geelong.

“The entire Bunbury community would get behind something like that, and the entire Bunbury and the South West community is big enough to support an AFL team on that basis.”

All aboard the South West Saints.

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