The Standard | ANY decision about whether Warrnambool can sustain its existing number of junior football teams would be premature, the region’s top official believes.
AFL Victoria Western District region general manager Lachy Patterson said more data about the number of teenagers playing the game was required before a blueprint for the future could be devised.
The health of junior football is again under the microscope following East Warrnambool’s decision to withdraw its under 17 ½ side from the Warrnambool and District league due to a lack of numbers.
The decision has left the WDFNL with 10 clubs in the grade, prompting a revised fixture. Mortlake Junior Sharks are also without an under 17 ½ side.
Patterson was behind a 2014 survey asking clubs to detail how many juniors they had and how many played on permits.
The results revealed "there weren’t a huge number of clubs able to meet the 22” to fill a side each week, he said. But the survey alone was not enough to justify a decision to cut clubs or age grades.
“I think that’s still a statement that needs to be ascertained after a few years of this research,” Patterson said.
“Certainly, from some of our research there’s one team (each year) that doesn’t have the numbers.
“It’s difficult to say now the structure of junior football needs to be changed completely without doing the research that needs to sit behind such a statement over a period of time.
“We’ve got results from last year but not over a period of time.”
Patterson said the survey could potentially become biennial. He said the 2014 examination unearthed that “nearly all clubs used the permit system throughout the year”.
“From our perspective, it’s not ideal for any player to play more than one game of footy in a weekend but we have to be realistic in the fact at some clubs, if permits weren’t allowed, their junior sides simply would not exist,” he said.
Statistics seen by The Standard show the extent to which clubs are using the permit system. To date, Warrnambool and District league juniors have played in the Hampden league 167 times. Going the other way, HFNL juniors have featured in the WDFNL 99 times.
WDFNL junior development officer Andrew Berry said the league would discuss junior football with its 12 clubs before the season was out.
Berry was unable to say whether there were too many clubs in Warrnambool for the number of juniors. But he said a re-examination of age groups across each regional competition could be valuable.
One option was to lift the Hampden league’s top grade to under 19s, which would bring more juniors into the fold to prop up each age group.
“Until everyone is prepared to sit down and say ‘is this in the best interests of football, not just our league, not just their league, not just our club, not just their club but the best interests of football’, I don’t think we’ll win the battle,” Berry said.
