MDFL 2024

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western royboy said:
Honestly…they’re ****ed

They have been trying to survive for years and were sort of heading in the right direction but they’re not now. There are a few whispers around about leagues realigning and one of them involves the adjoining Sth West league effectively becoming a Hamilton centric league and bringing the western end clubs of Mininera into it. Caramut has three options;

1. Merge with Penshurst
2. Merge with Woorndoo
3. Fold

Both options 1 & 2 have been mooted before but with a mixed response.

If there were to be some movement on leagues realigning, the logic says you have the sides within a 50km radius of Hamilton go that way ie. Glen/ Dunkeld, Penshurst, Hawkesdale / MacArthur, while the North East sides go to a rejigged league taking in the Ararat clubs and some of the former Western Plains league clubs that joined Central Highlands (which has 17 clubs)

This would leave Woorndoo Mortlake as an orphan on the edge of three leagues, the Hamilton league, the Ararat / Ballarat offshoot and the Warrnambool and District league.

If that happened and it would be a big If

Woorndoo might have a crack at going into Warrnambool but they would need the Caramut kids to have juniors. If they pooled resources and played out of Mortlake and created a merged club out of the three it might be a goer. But lots of things would have to go right and in some respects he’ll would have to freeze over first.

But as it stands and I don’t like saying Caramut have no future at all.
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Hey Western
What’s the latest on Caramut and also for that matter Moyston/Willaura and too a lesser extent SMW rovers are they done or merger bound or league change
 
manang magoos said:
Hey Western
What’s the latest on Caramut and also for that matter Moyston/Willaura and too a lesser extent SMW rovers are they done or merger bound or league change
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A couple of heavy hitters are now involved at Caramut - they have plenty of cash but still need lots of players.

Moyston Willaura have plenty of players - no quality and a committee that is questioning why do it?

Rovers just lack population, as do Lake Bolac

There is strong talk of leagues realigning which would push this comp further north towards Ballarat
 

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western royboy said:
A couple of heavy hitters are now involved at Caramut - they have plenty of cash but still need lots of players.

Moyston Willaura have plenty of players - no quality and a committee that is questioning why do it?

Rovers just lack population, as do Lake Bolac

There is strong talk of leagues realigning which would push this comp further north towards Ballarat
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Thanks for info Western 👍
 
Watching my old league from afar some of the clubs are really struggling. Always seems to be ebbs and flows for struggling clubs but some have really hit rock bottom.
I had this weird concept which ppl will poo poo but have 2 sections the serious competitors and village football.
Maybe play each other once then divide it as such for remaining rounds.
Something needs to happen for a lot of these clubs to survive.
 
How are the clubs going with reserves football?
Does anyone see a scenario where the clubs only field one senior team?

western royboy ... what is being floated in terms of realignment? These sorts of ideas are being floated in many areas at the moment, none more so that Central Victoria and south-east SA. We are at the start of a significant period of change for grassroots football.
 
I agree re changes , it is inevitable. I notice lismore derrinallum and surrounds seem to be able to keep their reserves numbers up judging by the results.
As per my village footy concept it’s just be the one team playing other towns in similar circumstances. If that doesn’t work then obviously it’ll be mergers and restructures.
 
You would probably need eight clubs in each division for that to proceed. However, the situation starts to become volatile the moment you start losing clubs from either division.

If the single-team clubs dropped to six, then you need to start looking at merging clubs to field a couple of extra teams in the two-team grade and winding up the single-team comp.

If the two-team grade dropped to six, then you might need to consider moving all of the clubs over to the single-team grade, which might even result in a de-merger or two and extra clubs taking part.
 
MortlockWatcher said:
You would probably need eight clubs in each division for that to proceed. However, the situation starts to become volatile the moment you start losing clubs from either division.

If the single-team clubs dropped to six, then you need to start looking at merging clubs to field a couple of extra teams in the two-team grade and winding up the single-team comp.

If the two-team grade dropped to six, then you might need to consider moving all of the clubs over to the single-team grade, which might even result in a de-merger or two and extra clubs taking part.
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These are all issues that need to be thought through as there are just no numbers in a lot of these towns combined with many people these days having interests outside of local football.
 
MortlockWatcher said:
How are the clubs going with reserves football?
Does anyone see a scenario where the clubs only field one senior team?

western royboy ... what is being floated in terms of realignment? These sorts of ideas are being floated in many areas at the moment, none more so that Central Victoria and south-east SA. We are at the start of a significant period of change for grassroots football.
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Lots of secret squirrel 🐿 discussions but in a 🥜 the main moves appear to be

South West League has now effectively absorbed the old Portland and Hamilton junior competitons which ran independently and from 2024 will field juniors there is a push to bring in 2-4 clubs from Mininera that are close to Hamilton into that competition. Not hard to work out who those clubs are.

This would allow the Mininera competition to effectively shift more north towards Stawell, Ararat & Ballarat - the Central Highlands could off load a few of its southern clubs (sone of those old western plains league clubs) and reduce its numbers from the 17 it currently has. Sadly I cannot see all Mininera clubs surviving and it’s simply based upon population - virtually no one lives in these little towns and the money to bring players in isn’t growing on trees.

Woorndoo and Caramut sit precariously on the edge of both of these scenarios, they might be well advised to consider the unthinkable and get together and head into the Warrnambool District comp and play the majority of their games out of Mortlake - where aside for 3-4 games a year one of the best facilities in the district sits dormant for 20 weeks every season.

The only constant in life is change. But lack of juniors or consolidation in bigger towns / competitions will eventually kill these little clubs.
 
western royboy said:
Lots of secret squirrel 🐿 discussions but in a 🥜 the main moves appear to be

South West League has now effectively absorbed the old Portland and Hamilton junior competitons which ran independently and from 2024 will field juniors there is a push to bring in 2-4 clubs from Mininera that are close to Hamilton into that competition. Not hard to work out who those clubs are.

This would allow the Mininera competition to effectively shift more north towards Stawell, Ararat & Ballarat - the Central Highlands could off load a few of its southern clubs (sone of those old western plains league clubs) and reduce its numbers from the 17 it currently has. Sadly I cannot see all Mininera clubs surviving and it’s simply based upon population - virtually no one lives in these little towns and the money to bring players in isn’t growing on trees.

Woorndoo and Caramut sit precariously on the edge of both of these scenarios, they might be well advised to consider the unthinkable and get together and head into the Warrnambool District comp and play the majority of their games out of Mortlake - where aside for 3-4 games a year one of the best facilities in the district sits dormant for 20 weeks every season.

The only constant in life is change. But lack of juniors or consolidation in bigger towns / competitions will eventually kill these little clubs.
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Thanks Royboy, it all makes me wonder why the western plains was disbanded in the first place. I guess clubs going under helped seal that fate. Central highlands seems huge though. It’s inevitable that clubs will go but hard to cop for towns that will lose part of their fabric.
 
I read something about club netball teams being in a different division or different competition to the club footy team which is again another factor which impacts possible changes.
 

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western royboy said:
Grand Finals tomorrow at Mininera

Seniors Tatyoon v Woorndoo
Reserves Lismore Derrinallum v Ararat Eagles
Under 16.5 Penshurst v Glenthompson Dunkeld

First named sides all heavy favourites and should win by 6-8 goals
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Lismore Derri 11 goals Ararat 0
 
GuruJosh said:
Lismore Derri 11 goals Ararat 0
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Tatyoon won by 14 points in the Seniors in what I’m told was a pretty ho hum game.

The 2nds was a blow out in the main because LD had a side that consisted of many, many experienced senior players and whilst Ararat also had a few of that ilk, nowhere near Lismore Derrinallum.

Penshurst won the kids by 7 points
 
western royboy said:
Tatyoon won by 14 points in the Seniors in what I’m told was a pretty ho hum game.

The 2nds was a blow out in the main because LD had a side that consisted of many, many experienced senior players and whilst Ararat also had a few of that ilk, nowhere near Lismore Derrinallum.

Penshurst won the kids by 7 points
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Thanks Royboy. Do you think Lismore Derrinallum may have better club numbers overall? Thus getting a result like this in their seconds?
 
Can anyone see any changes happening to the competition during the off season?

There has been talk of a restructure in previous posts with some of the western clubs potentially heading to the SWDFNL and maybe even a couple to the WDFNL. Hopefully, we do not see any clubs slip into recess.
 
GuruJosh said:
Thanks Royboy. Do you think Lismore Derrinallum may have better club numbers overall? Thus getting a result like this in their seconds?
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Off the record, I saw both their 1sts and 2nds v Ararat Eagles in the last round, Lismore Derri won the 2nds easily and Ararat won the 1sts by about the same. I would say LD are in fair shape if they hold on to everyone, they just had a bad run with injury early. The comp was very even the first 9 sides were all very competitive and the 10th was the best 10th the league has ever had. The bottom two struggled.
 
MortlockWatcher said:
Can anyone see any changes happening to the competition during the off season?

There has been talk of a restructure in previous posts with some of the western clubs potentially heading to the SWDFNL and maybe even a couple to the WDFNL. Hopefully, we do not see any clubs slip into recess.
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Wait until the AFL Season finishes...then I would expect a few announcements.
 
Rosato moving home will leave a large hole in Taty.

Tunbridge has stepped down too.

Two more leaving as well Henderson and Browne.
 
manang magoos said:
Hey guys anymore news on Mininera league any merger talks player movement etc
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All quiet officially on the club movement but still Murmurings about - personally I think it is inevitable but when who knows?

WLB have resigned Harley Hunter

Tatyoon as discussed have lost quite a few

Caramut had a new coach but haven’t heard of any other signings

I’m told Jaydo Wright is playing in Ballarat next year but I heard Geelong and the same stage last year and that did not eventuate so wait and see
 
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