EFL: Saints confident of player retention as club unveils $2.5m revamp
EFL Premier outfit North Ringwood is confident it can successfully tackle the slashed salary cap in season 2021. Here’s why the Saints president sees his club as an attractive prospect.
Local Footy
Don't miss out on the headlines from Local Footy. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Premier club North Ringwood is bracing itself for the looming salary cap cuts, but an overhaul of the club’s home base is expected to help ease the challenge of future player retention and recruiting.
Two of the state’s six metropolitan football leagues have announced their salary cap figures for next season, with the Essendon District and Northern competitions confirming a ceiling of $100,000 for their top divisions.
An announcement on the EFL’s figures is yet to be made, but it is expected the 10 clubs competing in Premier Division will be subject to the $100,000 limit.
While the Saints avoided relegation last season with a ninth-placed finish on the back of three wins from 18 starts, the club brought in new playing-coach Robbie Nahas for 2020.
However, the former Tiger and Roo is yet to oversee an official match due to the season shutdown.
North Ringwood president Lee Robinson said he expected to retain the majority of his players after consulting the club’s leadership group recently.
“I’ve been open and honest with the seven guys in our leadership group, and we had a meeting two weeks ago,” Robinson said.
“Those guys were fantastic – our leaders are blokes that have been at our club from anywhere from one year to 10-12 years, and they’ve said we’ll lead and drive this and keep the boys together.
“I’d be comfortable that 99 per cent of our players will say ‘Yep, no dramas’.
“They’ve been together a long time some of these guys – we’re very lucky with people that have come to our club, they’ve bought into the family culture.”
Robinson has overseen a joint $2.5m local, state and federal government boost to the club’s home ground, Quambee Reserve, which includes a full resurface of the oval, a “vast improvement” to change rooms, and 28-metre-high light towers for future night games.
The improved facilities and revamped oval are expected to serve as an ace for the Saints in both retaining and recruiting players under the new salary cap restrictions.
“The biggest driving factor apart from friendship, is if you look at the facilities and what we’re going to have to offer – the surface is absolutely phenomenal … add the lights in as well, and we’ll be using that to our best advantage,” Robinson said.
“I’m expecting the footy ground to probably come up as one of the best in the Eastern Football League.”
The Saints field senior men’s, women’s, reserves, under-19s and veterans sides, and the season lay-off, while not ideal, has helped ease the pinch for grounds and rooms when it looked set to move matches before the shutdown took hold.
“It would have been a really testing time - it would have been a logistical nightmare for us this year,” he said.
“As far as years go for that, it’s been a blessing, but not playing football, we’d love to be playing.
“The exciting thing next year is we plan on having some Friday night games with our women’s and veterans and twilight games for our seniors on pretty important dates, like Good Friday games, Anzac games and things like that.”
MORE FOOTY NEWS