By RUSSELL BENNETT
THE RUMOUR mill is in overdrive with the Ellinbank and District Football League linked to as many as six new clubs.
League heavyweights have heard that as many as five Alberton Football League teams – including Korumburra Bena, Phillip Island, Kilcunda Bass, Dalyston and Inverloch-Kongwak – have expressed an interest in joining a reformed two-division EDFL.
Gembrook Cockatoo, which finished last in the Yarra Valley Mountain District Football league’s first division this year, has also been linked. However nothing is on the cards at this stage, with the Brookers – Division 1 grand finalists in three of the past four seasons – determined to win their way back into the YVMDFL’s top tier for 2015.
EDFL president Roger Gwynne has said numerous times in recent months that if any new sides did want to join, their case would definitely be heard. But he has also said the league wouldn’t make a point of going to chase new clubs.
Back in July, Gwynne also did little to dispel the rumoured interest of a number of Alberton clubs.
But he did caution: “I don’t want to decimate their league.”
“It’s just, if they wanted to come across, we would listen.”
Drouin and ROC were also linked with the EDFL in recent months but both club presidents denied anything was on the cards.
Drouin’s Eric Bott said his club was busy attempting to build a platform for the future with its young senior side, and added that the “scuttlebutt” of a league switch didn’t aid stability of a club in a rebuilding stage.
ROC’s Marty Long said his club “hadn’t even looked down that path” in regards to a switch.
“But if a side like Nar Nar Goon came into Casey Cardinia that would be great,” he said.
“It’d make for a bigger and stronger league in the CCFL.”
The Goon will be staying put in the EDFL and will play a key role in the strongest of the two divisions – the west. The club – at this stage – will be joined by Bunyip, Catani, Cora Lynn, Garfield, Kooweerup and Lang Lang in a seven-team division that will have a bye unless another club joins.
The east, as currently constructed, will be made up of Buln Buln, Ellinbank, Longwarry, Neerim Neerim South, Nilma Darnum, Nyora, Poowong and Warragul Industrials.
