Corowa Cluster: Corowa-Rutherglen future uncertain after mass player exodus
Six years after problems in Corowa-region footy were raised and left unaddressed, the major league team everyone wants to survive could crumble.
Tough calls on the structure of football in the Corowa region that were put in the too hard basket six years ago have returned.
One major league team, Corowa-Rutherglen, and four district teams – Rutherglen, Wahgunyah, CDHBU and Billabong Crows – make up the “Corowa Cluster” of clubs that were at the centre of a three-year investigation carried out by AFL Northeast Border.
It concluded the obvious: too many clubs and not enough players.
Its woes began with a delay in finding a coach that has sparked a major player exodus, and was followed by devastating floods that have put change rooms and other facilities off-limits.
Thirty players have left the club that produced Sydney Swans coach John Longmire, with no replacements signed two months before round one.
AFL Northeast Border Commission has the ultimate power to make changes, but has resisted intervention in the hope clubs could find sustainable futures among themselves by broking more mergers.
It hasn’t worked.
Commission chairman John Byrne defended the hands-off approach.
“Having a club from that area in the major league, which everyone says they want, has to be solved by clubs and people in the Corowa region,” he said.
“It’s a vibrant farming community and has good businesses to draw on for sponsorship and support.
“It has a full complement of teams in the Albury-Wodonga junior league, their under-18s made the grand final last year and they’ve had a successful netball program for many years.”
Fred Longmire has had lifetime involvement with Corowa-Rutherglen as a player, administrator and father of an AFL premiership coach and player, John, with another son, Beau, captaining the club’s most recent flag 20 years ago.
He said another merger between teams in Corowa and Rutherglen should happen with an independent facilitator brought in to kickstart the process.
“At that meeting, members and sponsors of both clubs would be given the chance to express their views on what the future of the two clubs coming together again could look like,” he said.
“The 1979 merger of Corowa and Rutherglen showed it can happen.
“It’s my personal opinion that the AFL-VFL model can be replicated. By that I mean senior teams in both the O and M and Tallangatta leagues. No reserves.”
Corowa and Rutherglen were O and M rivals before merging in 1979 with another team called Rutherglen-Corowa created to accommodate a surplus of players, which sadly doesn’t exist today.
The last Corowa Cluster club to win a senior premiership is CDHBU in the former Coreen league in 2007.
CDHBU is a merger of three clubs, Coreen, Daysdale and Hopefield-Buraja and plays in the NSW-based Hume league along with Billabong Crows, a merger of Oaklands and Urana.
South of the Murray River where mergers are a no-go zone, Rutherglen president Pat Beattie conceded competition among clubs for players was unhealthy.
“We fight over the same footballers a lot of the time unfortunately,” he said.
“We will never have four successful sides in the area.
“But we definitely need Corowa-Rutherglen to stay in the Ovens and Murray.
“I’d hate to lose that. It is somewhere our kids, if they feel they’ve got the talent, can go.
“But if they go we’re going to lose kids to Wang, Albury, Yarrawonga and they won’t come back.”
Corowa-Rutherglen president Graham Hosier was contacted for comment by The Weekly Times.
COROWA-RUTHERGLEN
(A Short History)
The club was created when the Corowa Spiders and Rutherglen Redlegs merged in 1979 with North Melbourne premiership wingman Peter Chisnall appointed the inaugural coach.
Chisnall had played in Corowa’s 1968 premiership team coached by Fred Swift, who a year earlier had captained Richmond to the VFL flag.
Corowa’s only previous flag was in 1932, but Rutherglen was a powerhouse in the early years of the O and M, winning 15 flags between 1895 and 1954.
Jim Sandral won three Morris Medals for Corowa between 1959 and 1964 after playing in Melbourne’s 1956 VFL flag.
Essendon player Greg Tate coached Rutherglen to the 1954 flag with a win over Benalla.
Sydney premiership coach and North Melbourne premiership player John Longmire was a teenage goalkicking sensation for Corowa-Rutherglen in the mid-1980s before winning AFL’s Coleman Medal in 1990 at the age of only 19.
The merged entity made its first grand final in 1992 when another young forward Damian Houlihan burst onto the scene and kicked 91 goals for the season.
The club had to wait until 2000 before clinching its first flag following the 1979 merger.
It thrashed North Albury by a record 108 points in the grand final with Houlihan the hero with 10 goals.
The 2000 premiership team also contained David Teague, who would later coach Carlton.
Peter Tossol moulded Corowa-Rutherglen into a premiership winning force after being a star player with rival club Wangaratta Rovers.
Corowa-Rutherglen won another flag under Tossol in 2003.
OVENS AND MURRAY MORRIS MEDALLISTS SINCE 1979
John Kingston 1994
Ryan MacKenzie 2004
Jake Ryan 2008
OVENS AND MURRAY HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES
Jim Sandral – Legend
Peter Chisnall (Corowa, Corowa-Rutherglen, Yarrawonga)
Darrell Spencer
Paul Bartlett
Bill Gayfer (Rutherglen)
Jack King (Rutherglen)
Dennis Sandral
John Clancy (Corowa, Albury)
Peter Tossol (Wangaratta Rovers, Corowa-Rutherglen)
Norm Smith Medallist’s remarkable sporting switch
A dual AFL premiership star is pursuing a new sporting love and an event this weekend in Victoria might be his toughest challenge yet.
Australian 100m sprint star headlines Ballarat Gift
After securing record numbers for this year’s Ballarat Gift, the event will be headlined by an Australian athlete returning from from injury. Here is what we know.