Weekly Times | AFL Victoria today released the fixture for the Worksafe Community Championships to be held in May, replacing the existing metropolitan and country championships.
Reigning No.1 country league Geelong will play the Eastern league next year with the right to call itself the best community league in Victoria on the line.
In recent years Victorian country leagues have gone one-on-one to climb up the rankings through the Worksafe Country Championships.
The Melbourne metropolitan leagues played in a different representative competition, the Metro Championships.
For next year the metropolitan leagues of Eastern, Northern, Essendon District and Western Region have been matched up against the top four country leagues based on this year’s championship — Geelong, Peninsula, Goulburn Valley and Ballarat.
The Southern league will play the Ellinbank and District league.
Had the country championships proceeded as normal, the Peninsula league would have played off against Geelong next year to attempt to claim the title of top-ranked country league.
But Geelong will now instead play the Eastern league, which was the second-ranked metropolitan league after the VAFA.
Officially neither Geelong nor Eastern currently holds the title of No.1 community league — AFL Victoria has not designated rankings for next year, and results will assist in the official ranking of leagues for 2017 and beyond.
The withdrawal of the No.1-ranked metropolitan league, the VAFA, from the metro championships — dropping the competition from six leagues to five — forced the hand of AFL Victoria to merge the two representative competitions, according to community football operations manager Gerard Ryan.
“The feedback we got from leagues was the were ready for a bit of a revamp and freshening up, and we can provide that,” Ryan said.
“It might not be perfect in year one, but over a period of time we should see opportunities for them to play leagues they’ve not played before.”
Ryan said they tried to break up some of the match-ups that had been recently repeating in the respective championships.
The South West District league has also joined the championships.
The Community Championships will be held on the weekend of May 21-22, while the Metro versus AFL Victoria Country matches are scheduled for the weekend of July 9-10.
FIXTURE
Geelong v Eastern (Geelong league to host)
Peninsula v Northern (Peninsula)
Goulburn Valley v Essendon District (Essendon)
Ballarat v Western Region (Western Region)
Ovens & Murray v Hampden (Hampden)
Bendigo v Gippsland (Gippsland)
Murray v South East (Murray)
Yarra Valley Mountain District v Nepean (Yarra Valley)
Sunraysia v Wimmera (Sunraysia)
Heathcote District v Bellarine (Bellarine)
North Central v Central Murray (Central Murray)
Central Highlands v Geelong & District (Central Highlands)
Southern v Ellinbank & District (Southern)
Alberton v Riddell District (Alberton)
Horsham and District v Maryborough Castlemaine District (MCDFNL)
Warrnambool & District v Loddon Valley (Warrnambool and District)
Mid Gippsland v Colac & District (Colac and District)
Kyabram District v Golden Rivers (Kyabram)
Mininera & District v South West District (Mininera and District)