Weekly Times | NEW Southern Mallee Giants coach Geoff Burdett has a radical proposal for a restructure in the Wimmera-Mallee.
An AFL Victoria review of eight senior leagues in the state’s northwest has begun, including the Mallee league in which the Giants play.
Burdett has called for a complete overhaul of league structures.
“Don’t worry, I love the Mallee league, but there’s just no people there and why keep it going with a Band-Aid measure,” Burdett said.
“If they want to do a review, do a review and change everything.
“Go outside the square.”
Burdett, who spent 14 years as AFL Victoria’s Wimmera development manager and has previously coached Hopetoun and Birchip, suggested a conference structure.
“I’d like to see three conferences — north, south and central — and that way you play everybody in that conference in close proximity of where you live,” he said.
“Then perhaps when you’ve played you might have a swap over and at the end of the season pick the two best teams out of each of those conferences that have won the most games or percentages and play the finals like that.”
AFL Sunraysia, Wimmera Mallee and Central Murray region general manager Bruce Petering said clubs had started coming up with alternatives to current league structures in the state’s northwest.
One club’s suggestion was what Petering termed a “boutique competition”, where clubs would field one senior team, one junior team and some netball sides.
Petering said the major issue with the concept was travel distances and it was “highly unlikely” to be adopted.
“That was one of the left-field ideas that came out — it’s really pleasing that (clubs) are putting in some actual thought,” he said.