PORT Adelaide onballer Steven Salopek has been dropped to his SANFL club's reserves side, re-igniting the debate of whether AFL teams should have their own sides in local competitions.

Salopek, the no. 6 pick at the 2002 NAB AFL Draft, had been amongst Glenelg's leading possession-getters in 2012, and his omission from the Tigers' league side "shocked" Power coach Matthew Primus.

"We thought his form had been good the last three weeks," Primus said.

"So we were a bit shocked by it.

"We thought Steven's form was good enough to put him amongst our selection."

Primus and his cross-town counterpart Brenton Sanderson both said they'd "love" to have reserves teams in the SANFL, claiming it would make it easier to develop young players.

While some AFL teams such as Collingwood have reserves sides, non-selected AFL players in South Australia must represent a SANFL team and often adhere to a vastly different game plan to what they're used to.

Sanderson said it was a "tricky" situation because he would want a non-selected player to play a certain way or focus on a certain area of his game, while the SANFL coach could want something completely different.

"That's one thing that's a huge advantage of having your own side is that you can play the same game style with your young players, it's not as difficult to adjust when they come up and play at AFL level," he said.

"Matty [Primus] and I would both love to have our own reserves side that we could control.

"That's certainly on the radar for us down the track."