Don't mess with SANFL history, warns Sturt great and Australian Football Hall of Famer Rick Davies Sturt great and new Australian Football Hall of Fame inductee Rick Davies with grandchildren Evan, Grace and Sebastian at Unley Oval. RICK Davies returned to Unley for the first time in almost 20 years as a long-standing hero, the newest Australian Football Hall of Famer ... and concerned for the future of the SANFL, let alone his Sturt Football Club. As the nine SANFL league directors prepare for a contentious meeting at AAMI Stadium on Wednesday to consider allowing the Crows and Power to have reserves teams, Davies joined fellow Australian Football Hall of Famer Graham Cornes in putting up the barricades. "I know the Crows want a reserves team," said Davies, who has spent the past 13 years in Perth, where the debate for West Coast and Fremantle to have alignments to WAFL clubs was resolved last year. The Eagles will send their excess players to East Perth, the Dockers to Peel. And I am more than happy to have the Crows and Power reserves teams in the SANFL reserves competition. To have the Crows or Power win the SANFL premiership messes with the history of the SANFL. I don't want to upset what we have built up as the history of SA football well before the AFL was here. Davies endorsed all that was said by Cornes, the inaugural Crows coach who honoured a long-standing commitment to be the guest speaker at the Sturt-Glenelg clash at Unley Oval - a booking made well before the Double Blues knew Davies, their seven-time club champion, would become a national Hall of Famer. "Cornesy was very clear ... and he made sense that they don't need to have AFL reserves in the SANFL league competition," said Davies. Davies spoke alongside Magarey Medallist John Halbert, the Sturt patron who challenged his debt-laden club to consider becoming the Crows' "support club" in the SANFL in the same way the Magpies could act as Port Adelaide's reserves teams in the state league. "From what I have learned today," said Davies, "I have no doubt at all that the club can survive. But if linking up with the Crows makes for a better SANFL, everything has to be looked at. Davies was overwhelmed by his reception at Unley. "That was the thrill of my life," said Davies, who stole the limelight in his speeches, as he did at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Canberra a fortnight ago. And I want to come back here to be buried on this oval. Just make sure the dogs that are walked across the ground during the week know that.