The clubs, and in particular, their coaches are dead against the idea and the AFL has shown little more than lukewarm interest in the concept for more than a decade.
But the Commission acquiesced, saying in a statement released on Wednesday: "The AFL is still in the process of considering a representative match in the final week of the pre-season in lieu of a pre-season grand final before round one, and it is expected this will be determined over the coming weeks."
Missing from that statement was one additional sentence that should have been inserted and which should read: "It is now time for the players to put up or shut up".
Praise to the players for keeping representative football on the agenda when the rest of football had consigned it to the pages of history, together with six matches on a Saturday afternoon, the centre diamond and bringing your own esky to the games.
Their interest is less in the old state of origin construction and more some sort of all-star format such as "East v West", or the old schoolyard formula of two captains taking turn to pick their teams.
It should be noted that the vast majority of AFL players are now obsessed with American sport and that both the NHL (ice hockey) and most recently, the NFL, have moved to this format for their all-star games.
So now it is incumbent on the players to make sure they support the venture, because their track record in the waning days of state of origin was spotty at best.
In a recent interview, Robert Walls, who in 1999 coached the last real Victorian team (we're discounting the 2008 Victoria-All Stars game because that was a quasi-exhibition), recalled what took place when the selected squad assembled on the Monday before the match.
"We had a squad of about 40 players come in and the first thing we said to them was if they didn't want to play, then you can leave. They just had to see the doctor on the way out and about 15 of them did that. So the 25 who were remaining really wanted to be there."
A repeat of that exercise next year will guarantee once and for all that representative footy will die and deservedly so.
It is imperative that the players make themselves available to play and incumbent on the AFL and the players, when they put their heads together, to come up with a concept that is as inclusive and as attractive as possible.
The problem with playing the game two weeks before the season is that it might be too close to the opening round. It is that period of the year where the coaches might dig their heels in and dictate that a player already has enough pre-season minutes in their legs and doesn’t need to play again before round one.
It is also close enough to the start of a season that any player who emerges from the representative game with a sprain, strain or, god forbid, a minor tear, won't be right for the season opener.
The best idea might be to push the game back even further, to say, the middle of February before the fortnight of NAB Cup matches take place around the country.
Make it some sort of "welcome back to footy" celebration, play it on a warm night in February with the roof open at Etihad Stadium, featuring two squads of 30 players each, and you can guarantee at least 40,000 footy-starved people will turn up to watch.
At least by playing the game a month before the season, you can just about guarantee that unless a player suffers a serious injury, they should be right for the first game that really matters – round one.
Because that's the key to making representative footy, even a bruise-free pre-season version, a big part of the AFL calendar once more.
The players have to want to play. And they have to contrive it somehow that they don’t get hurt.
@afl_hashbrowne
