SFL players picked to represent league will miss club matches if they make themselves unavailable
The SFL will square off against a North West side this season and after back to back embarrassments in 2018 and 2019, players making themselves unavailable will face sanctions from the league
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REPRESENTATIVE football is back on the table for the Southern Football League this season and players unwilling to commit will miss club matches.
The viability of an SFL representative team was exposed in 2018 when then Lindisfarne coach Daniel Willing walked away from overseeing a team from the league after players failed to show for training sessions.
A last minute squad was assembled but the outfit was hammered by 152-points by the NTFA, a year after the NWFL dished out an 88-point drubbing.
In 2019 an SFL side was then humbled by rival southern league the Old Scholars.
SFL president Russell Young has confirmed a fixture against a side from the North West will return this year, with sanctions in place for no shows.
“We are embracing the clubs and we want the clubs to embrace the SFL, so that’s part of the rules now of the SFL that the players are expected to play,” Young said at the SFL season launch.
“After the debacle in 2018 I think it was of the NTFA we changed our rules, so the rules are now that the players are expected to play and if they don’t play they miss a week.”
The SFL campaign launches on Good Friday, with defending premier Huonville hosting Dodges Ferry, and last year’s runners up Cygnet facing off against a Hobart side which has pulled off a recruiting coup in luring former Essendon ruckman Jason Laycock out of retirement.
Lions co-captain James McIndoe, who will have his own boom recruit alongside him in former Clarence captain Brady Jones, said the club is determined to not rest on its laurels after ending a 12-year premiership drought.
“Obviously we lost two before this one so we know what it’s like to go close and not quite get there and we don’t want to feel that again,” McIndoe said.
“We know there’s going to be some great sides nipping at our heels so we know we’re going to have to take it to another level if we want to get that again.
“That drive is definitely still there … we’ve had the taste now, we want it again.”
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