Structure talk shelved

AFL Barwon focus firmly on participation

AFL Barwon expects to announce its new region general manager this month, but competition promotion-relegation plans will be put on hold so that the return of local football can be given top priority.

Departing manager Will McGregor put the contentious topic back on the agenda last year as he stepped aside, saying competitions needed “to be looked at for the betterment of the whole of football and netball in the region”.

But chairman Craig Keating said the priority would be the Play On In 2021 document, which outlines the strategy to return to games and retain participation.

“The priority is to be back playing football and netball,” Keating stressed.

“I want to focus on getting our clubs to play. I don’t want to talk about restructures to anybody.

“What’s the point at trying to look at restructure when you’ve got clubs that need to maintain their viability?

“We need to give everybody the chance to rebuild and keep their participation going.

“The focus is, one, to play; and, two, it’s to make sure that our clubs are given every opportunity to maintain the participation.

“Participation is going to be a real challenge at all levels — junior and senior.

“We need to make sure we put on as good a show as we can and that our clubs can manage whatever is thrown at them in the next seasons so that we can play the game because we can’t afford not to play the game any longer.

“All the other stuff to me is over the horizon.

“It’s no good talking about what the competition is going to look like if you don’t even know if you’re going to play or not or the circumstances under which you play.”

Plans for a football-netball shake-up were halted in 2018 but it was reported at the time that the three-division, promotion-relegation proposal remained AFL Barwon’s “desired position in due course”.

Keating said the “absolute focus” was on supporting clubs to ensure their survival.

“This 2021 is a year for consolidation and trying to make sure we get our clubs back on the ground and making sure they’re able to function in a viable manner,” he said.

“We won’t be talking about competition restructures in the near future.”

The local governing body, with AFL Victoria, will conduct a second round of manager interviews in the next week.

Keating said he would “be really disappointed” if the successful applicant wasn’t revealed by the end of the month.

All interviews have been conducted virtually, which he said had added a further challenge.

“We hope to have something by maybe the end of next week at the latest,” he said.

“We’ve narrowed it down so we are making some progress.”

Keating said the was “absolutely confident” of finding a “really good” manager.