Ballarat and Hampden to be played at Eastern Oval this year

A new venue will be used to host one of the major country interleague matches this season. Here is what we know.

Eastern Oval will host interleague next month. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Eastern Oval will host this year’s Ballarat and Hampden interleague despite the opportunity to move the match to Mars Stadium.

The Ballarat league has confirmed the venue will be used for the under-23 clash on July 5.

This year is the third contest, using the format, between the major leagues.

Originally, Mars Stadium was out of action that weekend as the Western Bulldogs were meant to host Adelaide in the AFL.

But with the match moved to Marvel Stadium because of a reduced capacity at the Ballarat venue, due to upgrades at the site, the venue became available again.

Hampden’s Hamish Cook tackles Ballarat’s Mitch Fino in the last interleague match at Mars Stadium in 2023. Picture Yuri Kouzmin

Ballarat league chairman Rob Simmonds said the move wasn’t made quick enough and Eastern Oval was planned and booked for the clash.

“Once we realised we couldn’t have Mars we booked Eastern Oval,” he said.

“We already pre-booked function and catering and all that stuff. It was a bit too late to move to Mars.

“It would have been great to have it there. Hampden were looking forward to being on the AFL ground but it’s going to stay at Eastern this year.”

Simmonds said Mars Stadium would likely host the next interleague game in 2027 with next year to be hosted by the Hampden competition.

He added better planning would be done between the league and the AFL to make sure all games can be held at Mars Stadium in future.

“It’s really hard because you have to match up the fixtures for Hampden and our league,” he said.

“This year was one of those things where we pulled the day out and didn’t consider it. The date was different to what was last year’s AFL fixture.

“Now that we are aware of it (we’ll look into it). In a perfect world we go to Mars and run it there, logistically it didn’t happen this year.”

Squads for the upcoming match will be released shortly.