They don't and never really have. Outside of the Storm, league in Vic in non-existent and the concept of some kind of 'local feeder path' is bordering on fantasy.
The Rebels do ok out of it now, there's a reasonable local rugby comp here and the kids are making their way up into the Rebels/Super Rugby/Wallabies. Jordan Uelese, Rob Leota, Trevor Hosea, big Pone Fa’amausili, Rob Valentini who moved to the Brumbies, etc. They used to have to move away to other states to make it (Matt Toomua, Christian Leali'ifano, Digby Ioane, Rocky Elsom, etc) but now come through their local development and feeder system. The keep an eye on them and work with them from an early age and try and steer them through the pathway.
With our reserves, I think you're right in that it's a medium term prospect to reach a point of significant change. However I think it's also going to be pretty much instantaneous to start seeing some benefit. Being able to share tactics/structure/gameplan (provided we sort out what we're doing in the seniors...) and selecting our AFL listed players in their position, rather than more senior VFL-only players getting ahead of them, means our boys in the twos can actually work on their game. Stocker, Carroll, Philp playing mid, Durden small forward, Cottrell and O'Brien on the wings, etc.
