Metallica_Man
Premiership Player
Centralian 'super' league on track
By DARREN MONCRIEFF
AboriginalFootball@westnet.com.au
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
MASSIVE changes to Central Australian football are underway with a new, expanded 'super' comp set to begin next year.
The decades-old Central Australian Football League (CAFL) will from next year be replaced with a new eight-, nine- or 10-team league involving the five established Alice Springs-based clubs and a cluster of Aboriginal community teams.
The new AFL Central Australia competition will converge the Saturday five-team CAFL -- of Wests, Pioneer, Souths, Federal and Rovers -- and the Sunday eight-team Country Cup, involving teams from Yuendumu, Papunya, Santa Teresa and other Aboriginal communities.
AFLCA general manager Brett O'Farrell said the new league will further strengthen football in the region and create more opportunities for local footballers. There is also a chance that the new competition format might bring Friday night football to Alice Springs on a regular basis.
The changes to Central Australian footy, first flagged five years ago, are at the end stage of planning.
"Basically, we want to improve the standard of footy here," O'Farrell told AboriginalFootball. "At this stage there's too many teams. There's 31 (football teams) in Alice Springs so what's happening is that resources are being stretched and some players are playing something like three games of a weekend.
"Now players will have to pick one side to play with which creates healthy competition for spots in teams and from there standards tend to rise which is what we want."
Part of the restructure will also include a merged Under-17s competition. A separate reserves competition will be run for town teams only in 2008 with the view to include well organised community teams by 2009. By then, a Northern Territory side will have entered either the WAFL or SANFL. That team, expected to have a large Indigenous component, will split its time between Alice Springs and Darwin.
"That new team will have something like a 40-man squad," said O'Farrell. "Those players not selected to play will either train or play or both in the AFLCA which will strengthen our competition and lift standards even more."
Fears of wholesale mergers between the community teams have come to nought, with only TiTree and Central Anmatjere merging, and Plenty Highway community to provide players to Santa Teresa, largely due to distance and economics.
Country Cup giants Yuendumu will be a stand-alone AFLCA team, as will Papunya. The Magpies and Eagles were premiers of the past two seasons.
Key to the community teams joining the AFLCA is long-term planning. Some face travel of several hundred kilometres, up to eight hours in a day, to get to Alice Springs and back.
"That's a major issue for community teams like Yuendumu and Papunya," said O'Farrell. "But their committees are extremely confident that they can do it and be viable AFLCA teams in their own right."
A potential clash of AFLCA footy and the many sporting carnivals Aboriginal communities run throughout the year will be avoided, said O'Farrell.
"We will never fixture a round against those carnivals," he said. "We'll have a general bye on those weekends. We know how important those carnivals are for communities."
By DARREN MONCRIEFF
AboriginalFootball@westnet.com.au
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The decades-old Central Australian Football League (CAFL) will from next year be replaced with a new eight-, nine- or 10-team league involving the five established Alice Springs-based clubs and a cluster of Aboriginal community teams.
The new AFL Central Australia competition will converge the Saturday five-team CAFL -- of Wests, Pioneer, Souths, Federal and Rovers -- and the Sunday eight-team Country Cup, involving teams from Yuendumu, Papunya, Santa Teresa and other Aboriginal communities.
AFLCA general manager Brett O'Farrell said the new league will further strengthen football in the region and create more opportunities for local footballers. There is also a chance that the new competition format might bring Friday night football to Alice Springs on a regular basis.
The changes to Central Australian footy, first flagged five years ago, are at the end stage of planning.
"Basically, we want to improve the standard of footy here," O'Farrell told AboriginalFootball. "At this stage there's too many teams. There's 31 (football teams) in Alice Springs so what's happening is that resources are being stretched and some players are playing something like three games of a weekend.
"Now players will have to pick one side to play with which creates healthy competition for spots in teams and from there standards tend to rise which is what we want."
Part of the restructure will also include a merged Under-17s competition. A separate reserves competition will be run for town teams only in 2008 with the view to include well organised community teams by 2009. By then, a Northern Territory side will have entered either the WAFL or SANFL. That team, expected to have a large Indigenous component, will split its time between Alice Springs and Darwin.
"That new team will have something like a 40-man squad," said O'Farrell. "Those players not selected to play will either train or play or both in the AFLCA which will strengthen our competition and lift standards even more."
Fears of wholesale mergers between the community teams have come to nought, with only TiTree and Central Anmatjere merging, and Plenty Highway community to provide players to Santa Teresa, largely due to distance and economics.
Country Cup giants Yuendumu will be a stand-alone AFLCA team, as will Papunya. The Magpies and Eagles were premiers of the past two seasons.
Key to the community teams joining the AFLCA is long-term planning. Some face travel of several hundred kilometres, up to eight hours in a day, to get to Alice Springs and back.
"That's a major issue for community teams like Yuendumu and Papunya," said O'Farrell. "But their committees are extremely confident that they can do it and be viable AFLCA teams in their own right."
A potential clash of AFLCA footy and the many sporting carnivals Aboriginal communities run throughout the year will be avoided, said O'Farrell.
"We will never fixture a round against those carnivals," he said. "We'll have a general bye on those weekends. We know how important those carnivals are for communities."
