Outer East league: Broadford and Yea come together in Division 2

A shortage of players has led to Broadford and Yea football teams combining for the remainder of the Outer East Division 2 season.

Broadford will combine with Yea for the remainder of the Outer East Division 2 season. Picture: Facebook

A shortage of players has led to Broadford and Yea football teams combining for the remainder of the Outer East Division 2 season.

The outfit will be known as Broadford-Yea in the seniors and Yea-Broadford in the reserves.

Both jumpers will be worn during the season, as each club hosts home games.

The structure of the netball divisions won’t be affected by the decision.

Outer East league chief executive officer Aaron Bailey said every possible step was taken to assist both clubs to take the field at full capacity in 2022.

“The league has met regularly with Broadford and Yea since February,’’ he said.

“The option to combine was investigated pre-season, however the desire from both clubs was to exhaust every avenue to field full squads, a position supported by the league.’’

Yea Tigers will partner with Broadford for the remainder of the season.

Broadford-Yea will begin as a combined outfit from Round 5 on May 7 — but before then they are scheduled to play each other this Saturday, at Broadford.

Once combined, the outfit will have a list of approximately 60 players to choose from each week, which means seniors and reserves football will occur across every remaining fixture this season.

In February, Broadford — the original club of AFL great Barry Hall — made an urgent appeal for players after being light on for numbers at pre-season training.

Broadford president Bonnie Cavanagh said the response was good, with the Kangaroos ending up with 45 registrered players.

But, with injuries, they’ve been struggling to field a reserves side.

Similarly, Yea has had to forfeit its reserves side in recent weeks.

“The league brought the clubs together and had a conversation to see if we’d be interested ... so it was a combined coming together to see how we could support each other,’’ Cavanagh said.

Cavanagh, though, emphasised it was not a merger.

“People keep saying merger and they need to get a dictionary,’’ she said.

“It’s different. It’s not a merger, it’s a partnership. The netball is separate, Broadford are super strong in the netball, our committees are still separate, we’re just working together because we don’t want Yea to fold.’’

Bailey said the league would provide both clubs with “significant support’’ to ensure both clubs return in full capacity in 2023.

The Outer East Division 2 season has now been condensed from 21 rounds to 18, with finals to occur on the corresponding weeks of Rounds 19, 20 and 21 as originally fixtured.

Division Two grand finals will now be played on Saturday, September 3.

All clubs will now play 15 home and away fixtures (seniors and reserves) with three byes, with each to meet three times.

The new finals dates for Division Two are:

Saturday 20th August – Semi Finals

Saturday 27th August – Preliminary Final

Saturday 3rd September – Grand Final