Pooraka Football Club stripped of Adelaide Footy League win for Approved Player Points System error
An Adelaide Footy League club has been stripped of its victory from Saturday and had its score wiped from the week before after a costly mistake led to a breach of the player points system.
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An Adelaide Footy League club has been stripped of its win from Saturday and had its score wiped from the previous match for breaching the player points cap in two consecutive weeks.
Division five club Pooraka’s 9.17 (71) to 7.11 (53) away victory over second-placed Colonel Light Gardens reversed was reversed this week, handing the win to the Lions.
The Bulls also had their score wiped from a 20.10 (130) to 6.11 (47) loss to top side Lockleys in round two.
Pooraka football director Paul Dittmar said the breach was due to a mistake.
Robert D’Arrigo, who played for the Bulls last year, left in the off-season but then returned to the club and re-registered.
D’Arrigo was listed as zero points for both the Colonel Light Gardens and Lockleys matches when he should have been worth two under the Approved Player Points System (APPS).
The error took Pooraka to 17 points and over the APPS, which is capped at 15.
The APPS is a rating system which allocates points to players recruited to a club, based on factors such as age and the level at which they had previously played.
“It was just an oversight,” Dittmar said.
“We’ve got a new coaching panel and team manager, so they wouldn’t have picked it up and I didn’t pick it up either.
“I thought the system would automatically pick these things up.
“But we should have been more vigilant in manually putting them in, rather than relying on system.
“It was an error on our part and now we just have to take it on the chin and move on.”
Pooraka escaped an additional $1000 fine due to co-operating with the league and transparency about its error.
A league spokesman said while there was no deliberate intent to breach the regulations, the score deduction penalty still needed to be applied.
Pooraka is ninth on the division five ladder with one win for the season – a 32-point victory away to Salisbury in round one.
The Bulls now have the lowest percentage in the division with 25.25.
“The players have taken it on the chin as another challenge, so I’m sure you’ll see a team that’s working hard to win the next few games,” Dittmar said.
“We’ve obviously made a mistake here but if we can win our remaining six games, play some finals and do well, who knows what the season holds.
“We just have to put this behind us as quickly as possible and not dwell on it.”
Pooraka became the second club in the league to be penalised for an APPS breach this season.
Division seven outfit Mitchell Park was stripped of its round one win over Central United after self-reporting to the league that it was three points over the 15-point threshold.
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