Bendigo: Eaglehawk loans two players to Maryborough seniors

Following another heavy loss for Maryborough, a rival Bendigo league coach is backing calls to look at major reform.

Eaglehawk coach Travis Matheson has urged the Bendigo league board to at least consider a Central Victorian competition made up of the best teams from Bendigo and Goulburn Valley leagues.

The Bendigo league is facing its biggest crisis since the 1970s when it had only seven clubs, with Kyneton departing last year and Maryborough weighing up its future.

Gisborne could also be tempted by another approach expected to come from the Ballarat league once its board issues are resolved at a special meeting on Wednesday night.

Eaglehawk played Maryborough on Saturday and in an unprecedented move for a major league senior team, Maryborough contacted its opponents on the morning of the match requesting two players to guarantee the game could go ahead.

Eaglehawk coach Travis Matheson. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

Eaglehawk agreed to the request and Riley Neaves and Jack Best played for Maryborough in the 30.9 (189) to 0.1 (1) result.

“Any options that can be looked at to make the league stronger would be something I would support,” Matheson said.

“You speak to anyone involved at any club or any league around the state they’re all concerned about the same things, the lack of player numbers, inequities within leagues and so forth.

“I’d be fully supportive of any big picture changes that address some of those issues, but also make the competition and standard of footy improved.”

Under a proposal put forward by the Weekly Times last week, four Bendigo-based clubs, Sandhurst, Strathfieldsaye, Golden Square and Eaglehawk would join up with the strongest teams in the GV including former Bendigo league club, Echuca and Rochester, which both left in the early 1970s.

Maryborough suffered another heavy loss to Eaglehawk on Saturday. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

A second tier competition for the remaining Bendigo and GV clubs would also be created and include clubs eyeing a step-up from their existing competitions.

The crisis engulfing the Bendigo league will be the major item of business for the newly formed Central Victorian Council.

The inaugural councillors are Nicholas Falconer and Ben Murphy from Bendigo, Swan Hill’s Gavin Hore and Castlemaine’s Lincoln Fitzgerald.

The quartet come from backgrounds including local government, banking, horse racing club administration and the CFA.

Hore was previously on the AFL Central Murray and Central Victoria commissions.

They were selected from an expressions of interest process that followed the former AFLCV Commission led by Nicholas Rolfe being dissolved.

It will retain the same decision-making responsibilities for the salary cap, player points, inter-region club transfers and appeals as AFL Victoria encourages “bottom up approaches” from clubs and leagues around reform to leagues.

A leagues’ forum has been scheduled for June 19.