Border Mail | THEY still have a way to go, but night fixtures have a future in the Ovens and Murray, Lavington president Peter Barwick says.
But he said getting the fixtures right was the real challenge, Lavington hosted Yarrawonga on Saturday night.
He was interested in hosting Friday night games, but said convincing clubs to come on board would be challenging.
“We’d love to look at playing on a Friday night, but other clubs would understandably have reservations about playing seniors and then the lower grades the next day,” he said.
“Regardless, I think the night fixtures have been positive, they’ve been beneficial for us.”
Despite varying crowd numbers at night games so far this season, Barwick said he could see them taking off in the future.
“Each year more and more people will come,” he said.
“They’ll need to be held early in the season, otherwise it’ll get too cold, but I think it’ll catch on.
“In hindsight we might have started Saturday’s game closer to six than seven, but that’s all part of the process.”
Ovens and Murray general manager Aaron McGlynn said the league was still ironing out the kinks, but was keen to continue experimenting with the time.
“This early period of the year is really just for us to test the viability of the night games,” he said.
“Ideally in the future we’ll try to keep night games local like Wangaratta v Rovers or Albury v Lavington.
McGlynn said he had floated the idea of having a standard start time of 6pm in a bid to lure more spectators.
