VSDCA: Brighton to pick 11 players after accepting umpire’s decision over points

The Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association will do a review of its player-point system after controversies involving Brunswick and Brighton this season.

Brighton will field a firsts team of 11 players in the Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association on Saturday amid continuing controversy over the Subbies’ player-points cap.

The Tonners have been referred to as the Tenners after selecting only 10 players in the first two rounds of the season.

They decided to go in a player short to comply with the VSDCA’s new points cap of 19.

The recruitment of Dandenong premiership player Peter Cassidy for this season as a four-pointer and the classification of former Premier pair Justin Butterfield and Robbie Salerni as four-pointers pushed Brighton’s best team to 20 points.

The club is adamant Butterfield and Salerni should be three-pointers given both hadn’t played Premier Cricket for 12 months before joining Brighton.

In Butterfield’s case he had played only one First XI match for Dandenong the previous season.

A Cricket Victoria panel last week reviewed the VSDCA ruling, taking submissions from Brighton officials Bernard Mutimer and Peter Eyers and VSDCA board members Geoff Hart and James Sheehan.

The panel backed the Sub-District association. But it also made suggestions the VSDCA should consider to “help remove ambiguity and help clubs with planning and recruitment’’.

They were:

* “Develop a glossary of definitions relating to all aspects of the player points guidelines, including specifics about season determination.’’

* Investigate a further reduction of player points for home grown players – the potential for them to become 0-point players – to “reward and incentivise clubs to develop strong junior programs’’.

* Give clubs two months’ notice of any change to the player-point cap to help them in recruitment.

Brighton captain Ricky Damiano said it had been a difficult time for the club.

“I haven’t liked it at all, to be honest,’’ he said of going in with 10 players.

“It’s been a tough situation, a tumultuous few weeks. I think people have judged it externally without knowing all of the facts.

“We came up with what we thought was the best decision at the time but now that we’ve had a bit more time to think about it we’ve decided it wasn’t the best thing to do.’’

Damiano said he believed the VSDCA was a well-administered competition but the points system “is a bit of an embarrassment’’.

In the north-east section Ivanhoe has put in a protest over Brunswick allegedly fielding a 20-point team last Saturday.

Former Premier paceman Lois Cameron, in his second season in Subbies, was listed as a three-pointer when Ivanhoe and other clubs say he should be at four points.

The former Victorian paceman joined the Wicks last season.

Noble Park played Brunswick in the first match of the season but president Craig Ortland said his club wouldn’t be protesting.

VSDCA president Phil O’Meara said there would be a “general review’’ of the points system early next year.

He said two clubs presidents would be invited to be part of it.