Q: Should we ditch the NAB Challenge Showdown?

YES

The Showdown is one of the marquee games of football not just in our state, but in the AFL each year. But we run a massive of risk of diminishing the game’s importance by playing 'Mickey Mouse' pre-season Showdowns each year. The Power's coach thinks the same way. “I think it (a regular Showdown) is a great game, a marquee game for the state and we should protect it as much as we possibly can and put it out there when it’s significant,” says Ken Hinkley. It may not seem like it’s impacting on the hype of regular season Showdowns when you look at it in isolation, but over time, pre-season Showdowns just chip away at the importance and significance of the game as a marquee event in South Australia. - Andrew Fuss

NO

Pre-season Showdowns serve a useful purpose and, at the end of the day, no one is getting hyped up for them ... so it hardly detracts from the real deal in the home-and-away season. We know it serves an important role in keeping both SA teams in Adelaide before the start of the season and gives the chance for one last, decent shakedown before the season proper. No one could seriously think the build-up to Showdown XXXVIII this week has been dampened by the NAB Challenge derby played well over a month ago, nor that it will have any impact when Port Adelaide hosts the game in mid-July. Nowadays people get too agitated by this notion of pre-season Showdowns cheapening the real derby; the fact remains, we’ve played them in the last six seasons and still managed to produce some of the all-time classic grudge matches this state has seen when there are premiership points on the line. - Matthew Agius