Finals flack

By Justin Robertson
WET weather has put in doubt the venue for this year’s Casey-Cardinia football league grand final.
The grand final is due to be held at Edwin Flack Reserve in Berwick on Saturday week, but the wettest winter in a decade has taken a heavy toll on the playing surface.
Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League (MPNFL) operations manager Ian Benson said the decision on where the 18 September grand final would be played would be made early next week.
“The council will be doing everything they can to get it up to scratch,” he said. “At this point, all we can do is wait and keep watching the weather to see what happens, but by next Monday we’ll have to make a decision.”
Mr Benson said that if Edwin Flack was deemed too dangerous for the players, the alternative would be to play the match at Pakenham’s Toomuc Reserve.
City of Casey manager of parks and reserves Trevor Griffin said the council was doing everything it could to have the final played at the reserve.
“We are undertaking works to improve the drainage at Edwin Flack Reserve in an endeavour to have the ground able to be used for the grand final on 18 September,” he said.
Despite last week’s second semi-final between Cranbourne and Beaconsfield – originally scheduled for the Berwick ground – being shifted to Pakenham, Mr Griffin said Edwin Flack was in a playable condition.
However the ground at Pakenham was considered to be in a better condition.
Berwick Football Club president Cliff Donegan said not only would it be a huge disappointment for the club if the league chose to hold the grand final at the Pakenham ground, but it could also stand to lose a “fair bit of money”.
“That’s where you make a lot of money, during finals and Pakenham if they get the grand final, will get that extra game and will do very well out of it,” he said.
“The council guaranteed us that the grand final will be there.
“They are going to work their butt off to make sure the ground is all right and they’ve made repairs to the drains already.”
He said the Berwick Football Club is only training on certain parts of the ground to preserve it as much as it can before the big event next week.
“We’ve looked after it as much as we can, but the council are the ones that tell us what we do and don’t do,” Mr Donegan said.
“We’re in the lap of the gods and we’ll just see what happens.”
In the EDFL, last Sunday’s first semi-final between Garfield and Warragul Industrials was shifted from Nar Nar Goon to Neerim South and this week’s Cora Lynn-Garfield preliminary final has been moved from Longwarry to Koowee rup.