VAFA General Discussion

[bedford]

FWIW new vafa president creating a big footy account and the Herald Sun doing a write up on Div1-Div4 recruits, what other nuggets does 2024 have in store? Bedford as the new mod?

Happy to accept fwiw

 

[random observer]

Lifted this from the D3 thread, as it is general to the whole VAFA:

I have a few Max. These are just of the top of my head and realise I am probably opening myself up to ridicule but in the absence of any others I will throw up these for consideration/discussion. I have been howled down previously for raising some of these but that’s ok. The VAFA are reluctant to change anything but here goes:

• Shorter seasons. 15 rounds will do. See below as to how this achieved. Will reduce the burden on volunteers, officials, players, grounds etc.
• 8 team divisions. Everyone plays each other once – home and away. More equitable results as it seems we have 1 or 2 teams in each grade every year who get routinely flogged every week.
• Like other leagues adopt a ‘one up one down’. I know I’m on the minority here but have never liked losers of a grand final being promoted. The ‘reward’ for the disappointment of a losing a GF more often than not is weekly floggings and a quick return from whence they came. My club a classic case in point. Lost a B grade GF by 100 points then endure a winless A grade season the following year. A few exceptions but rarely do runners up make any sort of impact in the higher grade.
• Cap number of teams per club. 3 x Thirds maximum. U19s in good shape so reluctant to touch that but some my argue for maximum 2 x U19s. I respect the counter argument which is valid but based on current tracking we are heading for a 4-grade senior competition in 10 years. Are people happy with that? We are losing clubs left right and centre, and not just district clubs. If serious about supporting clubs in the lower grades we need to try something.
• Abolish interleague, particularly those costly interstate junkets. Nobody really cares and the money saved should be invested back into supporting member clubs or reducing affiliation fees. If you must, do it every 4 years.
• Broaden the responsible service of alcohol. While not the saviour that many believe it would be, surely it is time to expand the current restrictive policy. FWIW I was until recently against serving grog in the VAFA but have now changed my tune as the social and financial benefits to clubs in the current environment outweigh what I once considered an important point of difference. Not open slather like some comps but maybe open the bar at ¼ time in seniors. We are already doing it to some degree but are confining those who want to imbibe to the clubrooms/social club. Onus on clubs to make it work and if it turns pear shaped then we risk having it changed back.
• If feedback from the lower division clubs is that travel is an impediment and might influence a move out of the VAFA then consider the re-introduction of divisions based on geography. Personally I prefer equitable results over convenience but if enough clubs want this then it should be considered.
• Controversial and hard to describe in a few lines but maybe some clearer guidelines around what constitutes amateur status. It is very ambiguous and open to interpretation – eg jobs (player/partners/family) VFL payments, ‘prizes’ and ‘awards’ etc. Doubt a proper deep dive has ever been done on a player or club.

Some excellent points on here.

Shorter season, with smaller divisions to make them fair: I like it, but need feedback from the clubs / players.

As I've posted elsewhere, I'm against limiting thirds - blocking social footballers from the club they want to play for won't make them go to another club, they'll just quit.

I'm more open to limiting U19s, but don't know if it's necessary (I haven't been tracking numbers of U19 teams). U19s players include blokes who will go on to play Premier A down to blokes who will only ever play thirds, and ones who have no intention of playing any further. If clubs are fielding too many U19s sides to the detriment of their neighbours (again, I don't know), a cap could be an approach, but I can see problems making it work. If U19s are capped, the clubs (logically enough) will keep the best players and pi55 off the future thirds / dead enders - who will not bother go elsewhere but simply quit. I suppose this could be blocked by bringing in some kind of zoning (OB sides can only field players who went to that school, district clubs can only field players who played juniors there or live within x km of the ground), but it creates yet more bureaucracy for the VAFA to administer. Also, caps on absolute player numbers are going to have to be pretty generous - all clubs undergo attrition as the season goes on, but U19s more so than most, as blokes drift away once they see they won't get a game / the team is not going to make the finals / the team is destined for the spoon / the weather is turning cold. A cap might not free up many players at all.

Firmly in favour of sales of alcohol being on same basis as SFNL / other leagues.

Defo scrap interstate interleague. Total waste of time and money, imo. Would only support interleague if it is in Melbourne and for some good purpose (like the fundraiser between NFNL and VAFA after Black Saturday).

One up, one down: open to it, but hard to make a case that it is going to move the needle much. Plenty of runners up have come straight back down, but others have gone better than the premiers. More importantly, plenty of times a division has one team crash early in the year (obviously destined to end 1-17 or 0-18): 1-up/1-down means that everyone else is safe from relegation from about R6 onwards, but 2-up/2-down maintains interest for much longer. Probably leave as is.

Don't see any attraction to regionalisation as a way of reducing travel as (1) it was tried in the 90s and didn't work (it created massive floggings, which had to be corrected by going partially, then totally, back to divisions based on quality) and (2) complaining about travel in the VAFA these days is a bit of a wank, imo. The travel problem has largely fixed itself: the far-flung sides that everyone bitched about going to (Point Cook, Westbourne, Werribee Amateurs / District, Rupertswood, Paradians, Old Eltham, Mt Lilydale, SFX, St John's, South Mornington) have all quit or died. There is practically no one out west (Williamstown CYMS, but Williamstown isn't exactly the ends of the earth) and most northerly sides skew toward the inner / middle suburbs (except Latrobe). The only extreme outlier now is Old Peninsula, and it is hard to regionalise around that.

Don't have a firm opinion about amateurism, but some of the things listed on this thread (gifts of cars, paying fees) are straining it already, imo.

As to the highlighted point above, there have always been clubs quitting the VAFA or dying - there is a whole list of them on the VAFA website. In the past, though, they have always been offset by clubs joining. This seems to have dried up in recent years. One reason that start up district clubs used to join was that the VAFA was the only comp with thirds (Club XVIII as it was then called). It was a good place for junior clubs upsizing to field seniors (like Point Cook) to build up numbers until they could reliably get two sides on the park. Typically, these then stayed for some years then quit, citing travel. In recent years, SFNL and WFNL (and probably other leagues) have started their own thirds comps. Junior clubs upsizing are mostly going to be found on the suburban fringe and are more likely to join the league in their area, as there will be far less travel. The VAFA has lost its advantage in this area and there is not really any way of changing that.

There was also a migration of clubs from SFNL about the late 90s / early 00s. Most (though not all) were ex-ESCFA sides with very small supporter bases and no ability to pay players. These days, even basket cases like Nunawading and Forest Hill don't seem to be interested in coming across. Either money is no longer a problem (or less of a problem than manpower), or paying players is essential to get enough to field a side in these areas - probably both. Either way, amateurism now seems to be a disadvantage in attracting teams.

One area that is of interest is why new OB sides have dried up. Throughout the 90s and 00s, and right up to the 10s, new OB sides came on board from smaller and newer private schools - Westbourne, Mt Lilydale, Rupertswood, even St Francis Xavier. This process seems to have stopped (and even reversed - OB sides have turned themselves into suburban clubs, like SFX / Narre South). Are school leavers no longer interested in socialising with ex-classmates on the basis of football? It is going to be hard to encourage school leavers to form new OB clubs if they themselves don't take the initiative: the VAFA doesn't have the resources to go around creating new clubs, and the schools themselves have no reason to do so (once the students leave and stop paying school fees, they are of no further interest to the school). I suppose the VAFA could try and hit any OB / OG organisations with some kind of promotion offering cut rate fees to new OB sides joining the thirds comp, but the success rate is probably going to be low. A severely shrunken VAFA might just be something we have to put up with.

 

[TheCanvas69]

Lifted this from the D3 thread, as it is general to the whole VAFA:


Some excellent points on here.

Shorter season, with smaller divisions to make them fair: I like it, but need feedback from the clubs / players.

As I've posted elsewhere, I'm against limiting thirds - blocking social footballers from the club they want to play for won't make them go to another club, they'll just quit.

I'm more open to limiting U19s, but don't know if it's necessary (I haven't been tracking numbers of U19 teams). U19s players include blokes who will go on to play Premier A down to blokes who will only ever play thirds, and ones who have no intention of playing any further. If clubs are fielding too many U19s sides to the detriment of their neighbours (again, I don't know), a cap could be an approach, but I can see problems making it work. If U19s are capped, the clubs (logically enough) will keep the best players and pi55 off the future thirds / dead enders - who will not bother go elsewhere but simply quit. I suppose this could be blocked by bringing in some kind of zoning (OB sides can only field players who went to that school, district clubs can only field players who played juniors there or live within x km of the ground), but it creates yet more bureaucracy for the VAFA to administer. Also, caps on absolute player numbers are going to have to be pretty generous - all clubs undergo attrition as the season goes on, but U19s more so than most, as blokes drift away once they see they won't get a game / the team is not going to make the finals / the team is destined for the spoon / the weather is turning cold. A cap might not free up many players at all.

Firmly in favour of sales of alcohol being on same basis as SFNL / other leagues.

Defo scrap interstate interleague. Total waste of time and money, imo. Would only support interleague if it is in Melbourne and for some good purpose (like the fundraiser between NFNL and VAFA after Black Saturday).

One up, one down: open to it, but hard to make a case that it is going to move the needle much. Plenty of runners up have come straight back down, but others have gone better than the premiers. More importantly, plenty of times a division has one team crash early in the year (obviously destined to end 1-17 or 0-18): 1-up/1-down means that everyone else is safe from relegation from about R6 onwards, but 2-up/2-down maintains interest for much longer. Probably leave as is.

Don't see any attraction to regionalisation as a way of reducing travel as (1) it was tried in the 90s and didn't work (it created massive floggings, which had to be corrected by going partially, then totally, back to divisions based on quality) and (2) complaining about travel in the VAFA these days is a bit of a wank, imo. The travel problem has largely fixed itself: the far-flung sides that everyone bitched about going to (Point Cook, Westbourne, Werribee Amateurs / District, Rupertswood, Paradians, Old Eltham, Mt Lilydale, SFX, St John's, South Mornington) have all quit or died. There is practically no one out west (Williamstown CYMS, but Williamstown isn't exactly the ends of the earth) and most northerly sides skew toward the inner / middle suburbs (except Latrobe). The only extreme outlier now is Old Peninsula, and it is hard to regionalise around that.

Don't have a firm opinion about amateurism, but some of the things listed on this thread (gifts of cars, paying fees) are straining it already, imo.

As to the highlighted point above, there have always been clubs quitting the VAFA or dying - there is a whole list of them on the VAFA website. In the past, though, they have always been offset by clubs joining. This seems to have dried up in recent years. One reason that start up district clubs used to join was that the VAFA was the only comp with thirds (Club XVIII as it was then called). It was a good place for junior clubs upsizing to field seniors (like Point Cook) to build up numbers until they could reliably get two sides on the park. Typically, these then stayed for some years then quit, citing travel. In recent years, SFNL and WFNL (and probably other leagues) have started their own thirds comps. Junior clubs upsizing are mostly going to be found on the suburban fringe and are more likely to join the league in their area, as there will be far less travel. The VAFA has lost its advantage in this area and there is not really any way of changing that.

There was also a migration of clubs from SFNL about the late 90s / early 00s. Most (though not all) were ex-ESCFA sides with very small supporter bases and no ability to pay players. These days, even basket cases like Nunawading and Forest Hill don't seem to be interested in coming across. Either money is no longer a problem (or less of a problem than manpower), or paying players is essential to get enough to field a side in these areas - probably both. Either way, amateurism now seems to be a disadvantage in attracting teams.

One area that is of interest is why new OB sides have dried up. Throughout the 90s and 00s, and right up to the 10s, new OB sides came on board from smaller and newer private schools - Westbourne, Mt Lilydale, Rupertswood, even St Francis Xavier. This process seems to have stopped (and even reversed - OB sides have turned themselves into suburban clubs, like SFX / Narre South). Are school leavers no longer interested in socialising with ex-classmates on the basis of football? It is going to be hard to encourage school leavers to form new OB clubs if they themselves don't take the initiative: the VAFA doesn't have the resources to go around creating new clubs, and the schools themselves have no reason to do so (once the students leave and stop paying school fees, they are of no further interest to the school). I suppose the VAFA could try and hit any OB / OG organisations with some kind of promotion offering cut rate fees to new OB sides joining the thirds comp, but the success rate is probably going to be low. A severely shrunken VAFA might just be something we have to put up with.

1. Shorter season. 8 teams with 2 byes throughout the year works (especially for divison teams). Mates at wicks this year play 12 games straight or something before a bye. Include pre season etc and it's almost 20 weeks straight of footy, and you're halfway through the year.
2. Sell grog, but have it in the social rooms. Don't need it around the ground as a start maybe?

 

[eth-dog]

1. Shorter season. 8 teams with 2 byes throughout the year works (especially for divison teams). Mates at wicks this year play 12 games straight or something before a bye. Include pre season etc and it's almost 20 weeks straight of footy, and you're halfway through the year.
2. Sell grog, but have it in the social rooms. Don't need it around the ground as a start maybe?

Disagree on the shorter season, as do most D1/D2 clubs. The issue with the fixturing this year was the fact that the VAFA couldn't swallow their pride and have D1 and D2 start a week earlier than everyone else to give us Kings Birthday weekend off.

 

[God Yeah]

Any thirds fixtures on the horizon? 11 days away and only playing dates have been shared with clubs.

 

[eth-dog]

Any thirds fixtures on the horizon? 11 days away and only playing dates have been shared with clubs.

Women's, 19s...