The club, which is on track for its 15th consecutive senior football finals campaign, resolved to form subcommittees charged with addressing three key areas essential to its future.

Club president Maurice Molan said player retention and recruitment, expanding the club’s income stream from outside the town and capital works improvements had been identified as critical.

“The impetus here is Hamilton Kangaroos and Portland have come into the Hampden league and clearly they have strengthened the Hampden league, but it has put pressure on other clubs because there are only so many players and coaches,” he said.

Molan said Koroit was competing with clubs from bigger population centres: Portland, Hamilton, Port Fairy and Warrnambool.

“We are stuck in the middle and we are the smallest-populated town in the Hampden league,” he said. 

“If we continue to do what we have always done we don’t think we will be able to be as successful. We have a passion to remain a stand-alone side.”

He said there was no mention of a merger with neighbouring Port Fairy, saying the Saints needed to be proactive to ensure their own future, especially if talk of a fourth Warrnambool-based club became a reality.

“We are not in a position where we can compete with these clubs financially and attract high-profile players. We have to have a plan to ensure we are still here in five, 10, 20 years’ time.”

Molan said the Saints were at the “back end” of a golden era in the club’s history, where big Koroit families loyal to the town and club provided a stream of players.

He said the club’s long-time policy of paying players $50 for each senior game win needed to change if it was to recruit and retain players. “It’s a model we don’t think will take us into the next five to 10 years,” Molan said.

“You can’t ignore it (player payments), it’s a fact of life. We have to have a model that will entice players but it has to be at a sustainable level.”

He said the club’s weekly struggle to field a reserves football side this season — an issue for several other clubs — was cyclical and not the catalyst for KFNC 2020.

Molan said the Saints needed to look at increasing their income stream and had to develop a master plan for facilities upgrades and improvements.

He said the Saints knew in the short-term they were unlikely to source major grants but in the medium term there was “some blue-sky stuff”. 

One suggestion was to work with the town’s adjoining bowls club about developing a social facility with road frontage that could financially help both clubs.

“We came away feeling pretty pleased with it all. If we do these things right we will have a good future,” Molan said. 

“There was some real belief in the room we can remain a viable, independent Koroit-based team.”

He said the town was growing but the club needed to recognise  new residents would not necessarily be drawn to the Saints as supporters or players as they once might have. 

He said the club needed to embrace new residents.