Weekly Times |
PICOLA and District president Shane Railton said the league would continue to look at options to expand its competitions despite knocking back new club Samaria Suns last week.
Railton said the league was “open to having discussions with any club that would be willing to join the league” to bolster its eight-club South East division and nine-club North West division.
“After sounding out our clubs, it seems they are keen to have 10 teams in the (South East) league, which would make us the largest country league in the state (when including the North West clubs),” Railton said.
“We have some potential sparks in the fire but at this stage I’m not willing to speculate on who they are or where they might end up.”
Samaria Suns spokeswoman Felicity Munro said the new club was “extremely disappointed” its bid to join the Picola league had failed.
The club was formed from the union of Tatong and Swanpool football clubs, who both last year rejected an AFL North East Border proposal for a three-way merger with Goorambat. Both Tatong and Swanpool have no on-field representation this year.
Munro said the Suns were frustrated by the reasons behind the Picola league’s decision, “which was basically that they don’t believe a club can come out of recess and be competitive and sustainable”.
“But they knew we were in recess when they said the door was open for us to apply,” she said. “They’re entitled to have their opinion and their vote, but for the rationale to be ‘we don’t think you can come out of recess’, if that’s their belief they were never going to vote in our favour.
“We understand their concerns but now it feels like a wasted opportunity and we’re in the same position again of running out of time to look at other options.”
Railton said the league did not intend to give the Suns false hope.
“We were always positive towards the Suns’ bid to apply, but we made a deliberate attempt to stress that just because we allowed them to present to the league, it didn’t necessarily mean it was a done deal,” he said.
Munro said the Suns steering committee would continue to meet to discuss the fledgling club’s options.
“It’s about providing the opportunity for people to play football and netball and represent their communities,” she said.