Coburg coach says ‘jeopardy’ could be a game-changer for the VFL
Two divisions? Conferences? Where does the VFL go if more teams come into a state league already bulging with 21 sides? Coburg coach Jamie Cassidy-McNamara has a suggestion. HAVE YOUR SAY
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Coburg senior coach Jamie Cassidy-McNamara is enjoying everything he’s seeing in the VFL this year.
The standard of the football. The crowds. The general interest.
And, of course, the form of his Burgers, who are on course to play in the finals for the first time since they split with Richmond at the end of 2013. In Cassidy-McNamara’s first year in charge, 2023, they failed to win a game.
“I’m really enjoying the footy this year. It’s really competitive. I’m bullish about the VFL,’’ he says.
He believes the SSP period and the chance of being drafted has prompted players to stay in the competition rather than drift back to local leagues. “That’s helping with the standard immensely,’’ he says.
But what Cassidy-McNamara hasn’t seen is something he hopes will be in the VFL at some point – what he calls “jeopardy’’.
That will come, he says, from a two-division structure for a competition that wags say requires five minutes to read the ladder.
The VFL has 21 teams this year and is expected to have more in 2026, with St Kilda and Sandringham expected to end their alignment and Tasmania possibly coming in too.
With the prospect of at least 22 sides in play, Cassidy-McNamara sees an “opportunity piece’’ for the structure of the league.
“I don’t want to sound like I’m telling the AFL how to do their job, but I’m sure the AFL is thinking about this … how do you build jeopardy into the competition?
“The example I’ve been thinking of is, we had a huge crowd at our ground when we played Collingwood (in Round 3) and I think a lot of the Collingwood supporters came along to see their young talent.
“I think the competition will be really healthy when it gets to the point where Collingwood come to Coburg and they feel like they need to win. And that’s not necessarily the Collingwood Football Club, but the supporters. That’s the next piece of the puzzle.’’
The VFL’s antecedent, the Victorian Football Association, had two divisions with promotion and relegation for almost 30 years. It reverted to one grade in 1989 after the withdrawal of clubs.
Cassidy-McNamara believes two divisions, with two teams going up and two down every year, would make for an “exciting addition’’ to the VFL.
There would be two grand finals and two medal counts.
“How that would structure with travel and all those logistical aspects would have to be thought out but I think it would be a big boon for the competition if there was something like that,’’ he says.
“I think it would keep driving standards and interest.
“You can imagine Collingwood coming to Coburg and needing a win to either get promoted or stave off relegation.
“Clearly the finals system has jeopardy involved but 21 teams … that’s a lot of teams.’’
The VFL introduced a “wildcard’’ first round of finals two years ago for the sides placed seventh to tenth. The winners go through to elimination finals.
Cassidy-McNamara says the wildcard is a good thing and he would like to see similarly high stakes brought in for home-and-away rounds.
He suspects promotion and relegation would prompt AFL clubs to put more into the VFL.
“I think some of them only see it as a way to support their AFL program, as opposed to something they want to win,’’ Cassidy-McNamara says.
“My background is in skill acquisition and one of the primary tenants of that is having the right challenge point. In the VFL that’s not just stand-alone but AFL. If you’re in a division or playing competition that’s in and around your challenge point, the theory would be that your development is going to be assisted and potentially accelerated.
“Clearly in the past we (Coburg) have really struggled. Being in a second division for us one or two years ago would have been helpful for our development. But there’s AFL-aligned programs that the VFL in its current iteration have struggled with and those teams could see it as a positive in terms of having their challenge point met week on week.’’
Cassidy-McNamara believes clubs should initially be graded on their overall performances since 2021, when the VFL came out of Covid to play half a season (that year the number of clubs shot up to 22 with the inclusion of Brisbane, Gold Coast, Southport, Aspley, Sydney and GWS from the NEAFL but Aspley dropped out after one season).
Bringing the old VFA clubs together in one conference and the AFL reserves teams in the other, with some crossover fixtures, is another option that has been raised by club officials.
As one general manager points out, the so-called stand-alone clubs already have something like their own mini-conference, playing each other once and in some cases twice.
Coburg, for example, plays Port Melbourne, Frankston and the Northern Bullants twice this season.
Cassidy-McNamara would prefer divisions with promotion and relegation to fixed conferences, which, he says, would be a “short jump from a VFA and a VFL’’.
CODE Sports put four questions to the VFL about the state of play: the Sandringham-St Kilda alignment, the idea of two divisions or conferences, Tasmania and the prospect of an AFL reserves competition.
VFL spokesman Sam Zito said none could be answered “at this stage’’.
Clubs that have had recent dealings with AFL and VFL officials came away believing the AFL has no appetite to bring back AFL reserves in the short-term. It apparently believes there are more pressing issues to tackle.
But former Williamstown champion Saade Ghazi says the VFL’s 21-team structure needs an overhaul.
“You’ve got to have integrity, and when you don’t play each other at least once, there is no integrity,’’ he says.
He believes AFL lists should be reduced, their reserves teams abolished and their surplus players fed back to VFL clubs.
“I think a stand-alone 10-team VFL comp with the backing of the AFL, the same as the SANFL and the WAFL, is the way forward, with a VFL reserves competition too,’’ Ghazi says.
Legendary Box Hill administrator John Ure for one believes the competition would be up against it without an AFL component.
He remembers the VFL from 1996 to 1999 (AFL reserves teams were absorbed in 2000).
“We played before empty terraces for four years. Nobody was interested. The standard was poor and clubs were struggling,’’ he says.
He says the “old’’ Victorian clubs would acknowledge their biggest gates came against a big Victorian AFL club’s reserves team, such as Collingwood, Richmond and Essendon. Without them, they would suffer a financial hit.
Ure says the draw does need “rework’’, but he doesn’t think two divisions is the answer.
He says the gap between divisions in the VFA “continued to grow and grow until it became a gulf’’.
“Early on the promoted team could aspire to finish mid-table and a few even qualified for the finals in their first year in the higher division,’’ Ure says. “In the later years, about half of the promoted clubs finished last and were immediately relegated. All they could aspire to was not finish last and consolidate from there.
“I agree with the view that a conference system – already effectively operating in a limited sense – would be worth further consideration.’’
Cassidy-McNamara would also like to see the return of “some kind of Development League’’. The reserves competition was abolished at the end of 2017 as a cost-cutting measure.
One format, floated by Carlton VFL senior assistant Tommy Langford, could be a mini-series starting in late February and running until May, with teams of Under 22 players and a representative game at the end of it.
Cassidy-McNamara says such a competition would help narrow the “massive’’ gap between the Coates Talent League and the VFL.
“I think it would stops the slippage or talent drain from Under 18s to VFL,’’ he says.
Cassidy-McNamara, a former assistant coach at Collingwood, says the VFL has a lot going for it, including “keeping the dreams and aspirations of a lot of players alive’’. It’s also a sturdy pathway for coaches, umpires and administrators, and, with the old VFA clubs involved, has great history. He’s says it’s time for people to start talking it up.
“Half the problem with the VFL is that there’s such an enormous amount of cynicism. Everyone looks at every idea as what’s the worst case.
“I think it’s really important that we don’t let perfect get in the way of good or great or better.
“There’s going to be challenges with whatever we want or do. As long as the AFL have a clear purpose on what they want the competition to be, teams and clubs can adapt.’’
Originally published as Coburg coach says ‘jeopardy’ could be a game-changer for the VFL
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