Deer Park to appeal points allocation for third straight WRFL season
Western Region power Deer Park will fight its player points allocation for the third straight season saying the league is taking away it’s right to compete.
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Deer Park will appeal its player points allocation for a third straight season.
Under the Western Region Football League’s system, the Lions were docked three player points due to “sustained success”.
Points can be subtracted for each premiership and top three finishes over a four-year period.
The seven-time reigning premier was allocated 43 points for 2022, two less than 2018-19 and 2021 minor premier Altona on 45, while the rest of Division 1 have 46.
It is the same number of points Deer Park were allocated this season after an appeal won back one point.
After winning the 2019 premiership the Lions had their cap lowered to 40 for 2020 before an appeal to AFL Victoria resulted in them regaining one point.
Coach Mark McGoldrick said the league was taking away “our god-given right to be a competitive footy club”.
“We’re in 2022 now, we won a flag in 2019 from which we’ve lost 13 players,” he said.
“We’ve got no juniors, our seconds team had to be topped up by a third division who had too many players.
“We finished fourth (this season), beaten by every team in the five and get beaten by the sixth team but they still want to penalise us.
“We copped the penalties when we won seven, we understood that, we copped it but there’s no way known we’re going to cop penalties in 2022.
“When we went to AFL Victoria last time, we got it because we won the premiership even though we weren’t the best team, we were 40 odd points down and got up and won but 2022 is a different story.”
Deer Park finished fourth this season, winning seven of 12 games but losing three of their last four.
WRFL CEO Matt Duck did not comment on the issue, pointing to the league’s total player points model as an explanation for the decision.
An announcement sent out to clubs in September said the majority of clubs supported the player points scale.
A date for Deer Park’s appeal has not been confirmed.
McGoldrick said the penalties were impacting the Lions ability to recruit and build the club’s future.
“It’s not only handicapped us with points but it’s handicapped us with recruiting, here we are in October and we haven’t got a decision,” he said.
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“I’m speaking to players but I can’t confirm anyone because I don’t know who I can fit in.
“I don’t want to bring someone to the club if I can’t fit them in under the points.
“I had that headache this year when we had to recruit young players with multiple points, we had to play them in the seconds sometimes because we couldn’t fit them in.”
WRFL Division 1 clubs will have a $100,000 salary cap in 2022 while Division 2 will have $80,000 and Division 3 $50,000.
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