St Joseph’s coach Ron Watt says decisions must be made to address the glaring unevenness in the GFNL
As the gap between the top and bottom teams in the GFNL appears to be widening, one coach has thrown up a proposal to help future proof Geelong footy.
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St Joseph’s coach Ron Watt says it’s “crunch time” for the GFNL after another weekend of horror results for the bottom rung sides.
The Joeys bounced back from their first regular season loss since Round 18, 2023 to beat last year’s grand finalists in South Barwon, 12.19 (91) to 3.11 (29), on Saturday at Herne Hill Reserve, with Paddy De Grandi booting five.
However, it was a close-run thing compared to some of the other results, with Lara (166 points), North Shore (242 points) and St Albans (93 points) absolutely creamed.
The Seagulls have now worn four beltings of 200-plus points with a 130-point loss to Grovedale its best result of the season, while the Cats went down by 276 points to St Mary’s in Round 3.
Watt, who guided Joeys to a preliminary final last year after an 18-0 regular season, said it was getting to the point where big decisions had to be made to ensure the GFNL remained one of the state’s best football competitions outside of the VFL.
However, he stressed they were his views and not those of his club.
“It is crunch time for the competition to make some really strong and smart decisions about how we go ahead,” Watt said.
“It’s been going on for a while now, where there’s become a bit of a gap between the top and the bottom teams.”
While Watt was unsure of what the answer was, it required consensus from all clubs to see a bigger picture.
“Whatever decisions they make, people have to get behind the leaders in the competition and allow them to make some decisions and use their judgement to help football in Geelong,” he said.
He said he was an advocate of having four divisions across the three footy leagues, but understood it was impossible to find a situation which suited all clubs and the GDFNL had seen a series of close finishes over the opening rounds.
“There’s a better chance for every team to play finals more often,” he said of a four-division structure.
“And you’re playing against more evenly matched clubs.
“When people say we can’t touch a structure because it’s always been like that, well it hasn’t always been like that, it continually changes in the space of a generation, there’s always movement.
“As much as we don’t like change, sometimes we’ve got to accept it too.
“I would like the competitions to work together for the betterment of football.
“I’ve always been keen on having four decisions across this region.
“Whatever decisions the governing body make, I’m sure they’ll be making it for the betterment of football, sometimes you’ve got to jump in and join them even if you’re not totally in agreeance, make the best of it.”
The top two ranked BFNL teams, following a two-year assessment, can accept promotion to the GFNL next season.
On the field, Watt said midfielder James Gow continued to have a fine season and was in the best players for the seventh time from eight games on Saturday against the Swans.
“He’s been fantastic, he’s becoming a really good leader on and off the field, he’s taking a keen interest in the coaching side of things,” Watt said.
“He’s going to make a terrific coach in the not too distant future.”
Gow was a member of the club’s “coaching council” – preferred over a leadership group – consisting of a handful of players.
Head of coach engagement, Gow works with the coaching panel on training structure, dealing with specific players and also sits in on team selection.
“He’s a coaching apprentice, just about, if you like,” he said.
Watt said it was a strong response on Saturday after going down to Newtown & Chilwell in the wet last round and it was perhaps a bit of a wake up call.
“It was a little bit different (to lose in a regular season), but Newtown played really well,” Watt said.
“Terrible conditions last week, but they use the ball so well and controlled their positioning, we got a little bit of a wet weather footy lesson.
“It gave our boys a little bit of a hurry up ... (to realise) we better be on our game every week.”
Meanwhile, young ruckman Ed McCoy is expected to miss multiple weeks with a badly injured ankle, Joseph Chaplin was a couple of weeks away with a quad, Jack Mullen is closing in on a return while Jack Buckley – who injured a rib in the opening round – has played the past two games in the reserves.
Originally published as St Joseph’s coach Ron Watt says decisions must be made to address the glaring unevenness in the GFNL
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