THE SYDNEY Swans and Brisbane Lions say any benefits from a new look northern states league must outweigh any potentially adverse effects on the existing state competitions.

Officials from the Sydney Swans, Brisbane Lions and the northern state and territory affiliate bodies have joined the AFL to discuss options that will accommodate the entry of Gold Coast and Team GWS from 2011.

Under one of the proposals being canvassed by the League and its state bodies, reserves teams from the Swans, Lions, Gold Coast and GWS would join the Northern Territory Thunder and the top semi-professional clubs from NSW, Queensland and the ACT in a new conference-style competition.

The Swans and Lions currently field reserves teams in the Canberra and Queensland competitions, respectively, and the two clubs said they were happy with the current arrangements.

AFL game development manager David Matthews said last month that the viability of any new look competition depended on whether Gold Coast and GWS chose to field their reserves teams in the local competitions.

Swans CEO Andrew Ireland and his Lions counterpart Michael Bowers did not rule out embracing a new competition structure if it proved to be the best way to develop the game in the northern states.

Ireland said the NT Thunder, which is currently playing in the AFLQ competition, was a good example of the development benefits that came from a team playing outside its own state.

"The competitions in Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane are established competitions but they would all accept that we want to develop them," Ireland told afl.com.au.

"The new competition [needs to] fill other roles than just match practice for the AFL reserve grade teams."

Bowers was wary of the potential for a new competition structure to halt the development of the existing state and territory leagues by draining their elite talent.

"If you haven't got a strong local club competition as more and more kids move from Auskick into club comps ... that pathway becomes quite rocky and some people who we might like to go all the way along the pathway might fall by the wayside," he said.

"It could have a significant impact on it and we think that's a pretty dangerous thing to do."

However, AFL development projects manager Grant Williams said a combined northern state league was just one of several options that the League was investigating as it prepared for the entry of two new clubs.

He stressed that the wellbeing of the existing state and territory competitions would be paramount in any revision of the structure of second-tier football in the northern states.

"The opportunities that we're pursuing for second-tier football in NSW and Queensland will certainly take the AFL clubs' requirements into account but they will also absolutely consider  the health and wellbeing of our affiliates in the two states and two territories," Williams said.

Bowers said he was under the impression that the drive for a new competition structure came primarily from NSW, rather than the two Queensland teams, but Ireland said that was not necessarily the case.

Both CEOs were equally concerned by the potentially prohibitive travel costs, while Ireland queried whether semi-professional players from non-AFL clubs could afford the time to fly interstate every second week.

The Swans chief, who spent 11 years as CEO of the Brisbane Bears/Lions, said fielding a stand-alone reserves side was just as important for development - if not more so - than playing at the highest possible standard.

"When Brisbane first started, they adopted the South Australian and Western Australian model in that the players were drafted throughout the local competition," Ireland recalled.

"There were some real issues with that in that you had no control whatsoever over their match day experience. It was really difficult in the early days and certainly during my involvement in Brisbane, things improved out of sight when we were able to field a team in its own right.

"It was probably learning what I'd seen in Brisbane made me appreciate [what we had] in Sydney."

Despite his misgivings, Bowers encouraged the AFL to continue investigating the idea.

"I think more work done on it means you've got a better understanding of what the possibilities are and that makes for better decisions," he said.

"Yes it is [worthwhile], but just at the moment, we don't see a lot of things as broken. That's why we're saying 'let's hasten slowly'."