teams came at a time when most clubs were in a much stronger financial position. The total licence and running costs for a stand-alone team were estimated to be $500,000 per year in 2011. Through the 2000s, the AFL preferred that its Victorian clubs retained VFL-affiliations, and offered a disincentive in the form of an inflated licence fee for fielding a stand-alone team; however, the AFL did not otherwise prevent teams from fielding stand-alone reserves teams if they are willing and able to pay the fee. In South Australia and Western Australia, the debate became more heated than in Victoria: the league affiliation system primarily benefited the state leagues, by helping to ensure that none of their clubs gained an undue advantage through preferential access to professional AFL-listed players, and by helping to minimise the drain of talent from the league, but this was to the detriment of player development at the AFL clubs, since reserves players end up playing for a variety of different teams, under a variety of different game-plans, and not necessarily in the positions that the AFL clubs would prefer. As early as 1988 - the West Coast Eagles' second season in the VFL/AFL - senior coach John Todd proposed that the Eagles enter a team in the Reserves competition, but the West Australian Football Commission point-blank rejected his proposal. From 2011, Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Fremantle and West Coast actively sought to establish stand-alone reserves teams. There was considerable opposition from the SANFL and WAFL clubs about including these reserves teams in the state leagues, with these clubs concerned about the impact this would have on depth of talent, league competitiveness, gate takings, and the existing club's viability: consequently, both the WAFL and SANFL on several occasions outright rejected any proposal which would see any AFL club's reserves team competing in those leagues. In Western Australia, a wide range of compromise solutions was proposed, including stand-alone reserves teams playing the WAFL clubs in a separate competition during their WAFL bye weeks, a new secondary league including reserves teams from the Western Australian and South Australian AFL clubs, or a return to host-club arrangements. In October 2012, the Western Australian clubs reached a compromise, with two WAFL clubs, Peel and East Perth, forming host club arrangements with Fremantle and West Coast. In 2017, East Perth and West Coast mutally agreed to dissolve this arrangement, with West Coast