Emergency meeting as Drouin faces forfeit
Drouin is on the verge of forfeiting its senior match against Traralgon next Saturday.
There’ll be an emergency meeting of the club and players tonight – at least six regular senior side players are unavailable because of injury and another is overseas – to assess whether it can put a team on the ground.
AFL Gippsland has been informed of the situation.
Forfeits at senior level are virtually unprecedented.
Drouin has been unable to field reserves’ teams in two of the four rounds so far this season and won’t have one on Saturday.
The twice it has had reserves has only been due to largely “one-off” appearances by past players that answered an SOS.
It would be a big call on Under 18 players, not yet ready for senior football, to be drafted to fill the void in the senior side that has already suffered heavy defeats in all four games.
If that happened it would more than likely result in a forfeit of the thirds game.
In other matches in Gippsland League on Saturday Warragul has a chance to consolidate its spot in the “five” when it travels to Sale.
The Gulls will be seeking backto-back wins for the first time this season and should be full of confidence after a great win over reigning premier Maffra in the previous round.
On Saturday it will come up against a Sale side that has had a slow start to the season and has its injury worries.
But Warragul has plenty of injury problems too.
The weekend “break” for interleague usually gives most players a chance to freshen up and shake off some injuries.
At Warragul the news during the past week has been mainly bad.
It has been confirmed that experienced key defender Brendan Sheehan will need a knee reconstruction and Tom Hobbs, now on VFL club Port Melbourne’s list and who has played one game with the Gulls this season, requires a shoulder reconstruction.
The season is over for both of them.
And young star Caleb Serong, still a junior but an important member of the senior side, last week underwent surgery on a broken collarbone.
The Gulls need to shrug off those setbacks off to meet the challenges ahead.
They did that against Maffra showing some extra depth on the list that can stand up at senior level.
Bairnsdale hosts Moe in an important match for both clubs, Leongatha will be at home to the improved Morwell while Maffra will be looking to redeem after its previous round loss when it hosts Wonthaggi Power.
Matches at grounds of named clubs are:Sale v. Warragul. Drouin v. Traralgon. Bairnsdale v. Moe. Maffra v. Wonthaggi Power. Leongatha v. Morwell. first