For St Kilda fans, sliding doors moments don't come much grimmer than the 'Stephen Milne bounce' which cruelled the Saints' chances in the dying minutes of the drawn 2010 Grand Final, or the Matthew Scarlett toe-poke which did the same in the 2009 decider.

But there was an even bigger moment, many years earlier, that damned the Saints' plans for a dynasty. Under then-president Ian Drake, the Saints had prepared better than most for a looming change in the player rules that had been building for more than a decade.

Back in the Sixties, the League (then the VFL) wanted a more even competition. Too many clubs were finding their seasons effectively over, with no chance of playing finals, before the end of June. One reason the competition was so lopsided was that Collingwood and Melbourne had, for years, had the pick of country talent.

As North Melbourne's former recruiter Ron Joseph remembered, when battling clubs like the Kangaroos ventured into the bush “the player had already signed with Collingwood or Melbourne''.

Since every club had its own local zone for recruits in the city, the idea was to carve out country regions to give each club an exclusive area. First raised in 1957, the plan was so controversial that it was not adopted until Grand Final eve of 1967.

By then, the Saints had seen the writing on the wall and moved from their original home at the Junction Oval to Moorabbin. Most of their fans were in the south-east. Drake lived in Frankston and knew how much talent was down on the Mornington Peninsula. Competition for country players was so fierce that in 1966 St Kilda even opted out of chasing players from the bush, focusing instead on their local hunting grounds Brighton and Sandringham.

Long term, they argued, the Peninsula zone was a natural, logical extension of their existing bayside haunts.

Although the zones were supposed to be assigned randomly, former administrator Cameron Schwab - whose father Alan was at St Kilda at the time - said the Saints voted for zoning on the understanding they would get the Peninsula zone. It was one of the best, taking in West Gippsland, as well as Mornington.

But the system was supposed to even the competition: when the vote was taken the Saints were the reigning premier, having won their maiden premiership in 1966. Drake later told 200-gamer, Stuart Trott, that the other clubs admitted they feared the Saints of 1965-66 becoming too powerful. 

It was Hawthorn, a bottom-four club for three years running, that ‘won' the Peninsula. St Kilda received Ballarat.

While every zone eventually produced at least one champion, the Saints could only watch as over the next five years a veritable Hall of Fame marched into Glenferrie from the country zone: Leigh Mathews, Michael Tuck, Kelvin Moore, Peter Knights, Leon Rice, Michael Moncrieff and Alan Goad. Fully 18 players from Hawthorn's country zone debuted in the system's first five years. In the same period, St Kilda's country debutants numbered two.

Country zoning, born on September 22, 1967, ushered in a golden era for the Hawks that could easily have been the Saints'.

Sliding doors don't come with more hurt than that.

For the full story of how country zoning changed the game and the fortunes of every club get 'Between The Flags' at www.betweentheflags57.com.au.