By Russell Bennett and Nick Creely
The pieces are falling into place and, gradually, they’re making up the AFL Greater East puzzle.
All eight South East Football Netball League (SEFNL) clubs have now given a clear indication of where their futures may lie following a dramatic week of local football and netball developments.
After Officer and Beaconsfield made it clear that it was their preference to join AFL Yarra Ranges’ AFL Greater East divisional football and netball set-up, Cranbourne announced that – ideally – it would join the Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League (MPNFL) from 2019.
Since then, Doveton, Berwick, Tooradin-Dalmore, Narre Warren, and Pakenham have all given a clear indication of which directions they wish to head.
Through a statement on the Doveton Facebook page, president Aaron Henwood said it was the recommendation of the club executive for the Doves to affiliate with AFL Greater East from 2019. The club is scheduled to hold its special general meeting at Robinson Reserve on 26 June, at which point members will vote to formally decide its future.
Berwick president Glen Gambetta, meanwhile, said his club was also “leaning towards” AFL Greater East citing its eagerness to keep its netball and football arms together.
“We would like to see this region have some representation in Eastern (the Eastern Football League), and while we would like to potentially be there, we will lose netball forever,” he said.
“We’ll make a recommendation on 12 June but at this stage we are leaning towards AFL Greater East.”
Along similar lines, Narre Warren president Stuart Stephenson said his club would also vote on 12 June.
“The expectation is that we’ll vote towards AFL Greater East,” he said.
“We’ve been strong on retaining our football and netball clubs into the future.”
Pakenham president Darren Sidebottom was much more succinct, simply saying that the Lions had two options to consider – Yarra Ranges (AFL Greater East) or the Gippsland League – at its vote on 6 June.
Tooradin-Dalmore’s Greg Kelly, meanwhile, made it clear that his club sees its future in West Gippsland.
“As it stands, we have applied for West Gippsland and we’ve had several meetings with the competition, and they’ve been very positive,” he said.
“They (AFL Gippsland) are re-structuring and their whole game has changed.
“We are a small country town; we simply can’t compete with the Berwicks, Narre Warrens and Beaconsfields, and it’s simply not fair. We are throwing everything we can at this – we’ve put the paperwork in and are just waiting for the review to come through.”
Officer became the first piece of the puzzle to seemingly slot into place late last month when its committee met to formally endorse a transfer to AFL Yarra Ranges – a motion that the Gazette believes was passed unanimously.
Officer was the first SEFNL club to publically announce its position and has since written to AFL Yarra Ranges to officially commence the process of a move.
Officer Senior Football Club president Nick McLennan told the Gazette that his club’s decision was one that hadn’t been taken lightly, “but one which we know is best for the future of our football club and football in the region”.
“The prospect of divisional football is an exciting one – you only have to look other leagues like the Eastern Football League to see the benefits of having multiple divisions,” he said.
“It generates competitive football, which sides in this league have been screaming out for.
“The club sought to consult widely prior to making this decision and whilst there were a number of options on the table, a move to join AFL Yarra Ranges/Greater East alongside a number of our rivals from SEFNL was by far the best option for our club.
“This decision also comes with the full support of our past players and life members, who, like our playing group, want nothing more than to see our club once again experience some success.
“One of the driving factors behind this decision was also the future of the ROC Netball Club, as it is very much our desire to ensure that both our football and netball clubs can continue to coexist and play our home games together. We think this option presents a great opportunity for both our respective clubs.
“The recent interleague match between SEFNL and AFL Yarra Ranges demonstrates that both competitions are not that far apart from a competition perspective and that, together, we can form one of the strongest competitions in Victoria with room for growth.
“Our club has had a prolonged period without a great deal of success and while we feel we are tracking in the right direction, divisional football presents an opportunity for all clubs, including ours, to experience success.”
Less than 24 hours after Officer made its intentions clear, Cranbourne announced its desire to join the MPNFL for 2019 and beyond.
In a statement provided to the Gazette, club president Gerry Kelly said: “Due to the upcoming demise of the SEFNL competition at the end of 2018, the Cranbourne Football Club has sought and gained permission from AFL South East to negotiate with the MPNFL and member clubs to join their league in season 2019.”
The Gazette understands that AFL Greater East is still in the frame for the Eagles as a contingency plan should the MPNFL clubs vote against them coming across.
Cranbourne believes that the MPNFL offers its best long-term option for playing in a competitive and stable competition.
“The Cranbourne Football Club believes it can add to the strength of the MPNFL with their diversity in members and strong supporter base following teams in seniors, under-19s, women’s, Superules, All Abilities, and netball with all training and competing at the great facilities Casey Fields has to offer,” the club’s statement read.
Kelly said his club had been on a long journey to this point, taking an “exhaustive look” at each of its options – including the Eastern Football League, Yarra Ranges, and the MPNFL.
“We plan to speak to all of the MPNFL clubs in the coming month and we hope they’ll be accepting of us because of our geographic situation, but also to help them form a third division,” he added.
“Obviously that’s needed down there with a couple of clubs that are struggling, which I’m sure would love to drop to a third tier.”
Kelly said the ball was now in the court of the MPNFL clubs.
“It’s up to them to make a decision, and we’ll see what happens after that,” he said.
“We’d love to be part of the MPNFL – that’s where we see our future.”
Beaconsfield, meanwhile, had a committee meeting on Tuesday of last week and voted in favour of a move to AFL Greater east after much soul-searching by president Troy Robinson and other key figures from within the club.
“It’s a massive pressure valve release for us,” Robinson said.
“It’s been a frustrating topic for the past 12 months, so to have a resolution allows us to go through the formal application process, and it’s a massive relief for us.
“We’re excited that we can finally move on to the future now – it was a 99.9 per cent vote in favour of.”
Robinson said the club did its due diligence and considered a move to the powerful EFL but opted for the Yarra Ranges proposal for one major reason – a factor that overrode everything.
“The key link strategically is that we retained a relationship with netball, and that’s the most underpinning and overwhelming factor for us as a club,” he said.
“We have a very strong relationship with our netball club and that was a massive desire to retain that, and a critical ingredient was to go in a competition that could accommodate both football and netball together.
“We’ve done a lot of due diligence and (we) were meticulous in how we presented it to our people – we looked at Eastern, and we met with the league a number of times, and we put together a risk matrix to look at the risks and the positives, and at the end of the day they were neutral, but the key lynchpin in retaining netball was the biggest thing for us.”
The club is now at the stage of formally applying to join AFL Yarra Ranges, but Robinson did admit that the long-term future of his club could well be elsewhere.
“Is it the long term the right choice? Crystal ball, we can’t tell at this point – we have a massive desire to be involved in the West Gippsland competition, that’s our future flavour of choice,” Robinson said.
“We want to pursue that model – we want to play the highway, the Garfields, Nar Nar Goons, the Bunyips, Warragul and Drouin, and we believe there’s a massive opportunity if the AFL gets smart, re-zones and looks at the football model properly.
“We believe that’s still the right option for our football, but it’s not on the table right now, but we’ll definitely be showing interest in the coming years.”
The AFL Yarra Ranges’ presentation to the SEFNL clubs – centred on what’s set to become the AFL Greater East competition – clearly made a strong impression when it was rolled out.
Crucially, unlike some other divisional competitions, AFL Yarra Ranges boasts a genuine football-netball competition with the two sports working hand-in-hand and running to the same fixture. The netball, like the football, is played on Saturdays with all football venues – with the exception of Belgrave – boasting netball courts. The Belgrave netballers play out of South Belgrave, which is closer to the SEFNL clubs.
The presentation also clearly set out the proximity of the existing AFL Yarra Ranges clubs to those currently in the SEFNL, with the travel times between them contrary to popular belief.
It also made clear the potential for the competition to allow the SEFNL clubs to maintain their current rivalries, and each club would clearly maintain its current identity (records, life memberships, history and the like).
Should SEFNL clubs join the AFL Yarra Ranges competition from 2019, that would lead to the creation of a third division. The current structure features two tiers in a promotion-relegation format, but a third tier next year – currently spoken about as ‘Division 2’ – would be for the smaller and/or northern-most clubs such as Alexandra, Kinglake, Thornton Eildon, Yea, and any other potential clubs that wish to join. Divisions 1 and 2 – or ‘Premier’ and ‘Division 1’ – would include the likes of Healesville, Olinda Ferny Creek, Upwey Tecoma, Wandin, Woori Yallock, Belgrave, Emerald, Gembrook Cockatoo, Monbulk, Mount Evelyn, Warburton Millgrove and Yarra Glen out of the existing AFL Yarra Ranges, in addition to the SEFNL clubs.
It’s therefore extremely unlikely that the SEFNL clubs would face any northern AFL Yarra Ranges clubs anytime soon.
When it comes to implementing the proposed new competition, the presentation from the AFL Yarra Ranges stated that once a formal application is received, approval can be provided in a short time frame. It also stated that the whole new set-up could be in place for the first bounce of the 2019 season.
While clubs would be consulted on the delivery of the competition, ratification would take place through the commission – not the clubs. Effectively, should SEFNL clubs wish to join, there would be no roadblocks in doing so.
