Hampden: Grand final will be played on Friday, September 26 next year

Another major country football-netball league is going to play on the AFL grand final Friday public holiday next year. See why.

David Johnston

2 min read

December 18, 2024 - 10:12AM

The Weekly Times

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Hampden Football Netball-Netball League will break with tradition and play its premiership-deciding match next year on the Friday public holiday before the AFL grand final.

The Friday finale was locked into the 2025 Hampden league draw for September 26 in a move that extends the competition by one week.

League president Shane Threlfall said the “success of Geelong” this year when it had close to 10,000 people attend its first Friday grand final was the clincher.

“There have been lots of positive comments, but on the other side of the coin there have been some reasons why we shouldn’t do it,” he said.

“The success of Geelong made people start to think about it more strongly.

“From all reports they had a terrific day and we thought it was worth a try.”

Koroit beat Port Fairy in the 2017 Hampden league grand final. The grand final will be played on a Friday next year. Picture Yuri Kouzmin

The Hampden grand final most years attracts a crowd of between 3500 to 4000 people and Threlfall is confident that figure will be eclipsed next year.

There will be a two-week break between the Hampden and Warrnambool District league grand finals which are both played at Warrnambool’s Reid Oval.

“One motivating factor is obviously a bigger crowd and being a stand-alone for our whole area would hopefully allow people to get to that day,” he said.

“The other is it also gave us a bit more flexibility in our fixture by opening up an extra week.”

There will be a split round in early August and the bye following the May racing carnival has been dropped.

South Warrnambool have won the last two Hampden league senior football and open netball grand finals. Picture: Nicole Cleary

South Warrnambool, the senior premiers for the past two seasons, preferred sticking with a Saturday grand final, but Koroit’s multiple premiership winning coach Chris McLaren said he was prepared to give it a go.

“I’m one of those ‘let’s try it and see how it goes’ operators,” he said.

“I can see all the queries to it, but I can also see the pros to it.”

Meanwhile, Bendigo league clubs which missed finals in 2024 have been given their best chance of improvement next year in the 2025 fixture.

The league is down to eight clubs next year with Maryborough in recess and in order to play a 16-round season again clubs had to play two other teams three times.

Kangaroo Flat, which finished one spot higher than Maryborough, will play Eaglehawk and South Bendigo.

South Bendigo plays Castlemaine and Kangaroo Flat.

Castlemaine, one of the big improvers in 2024, plays South Bendigo and Eaglehawk.

The Bendigo league was the most uneven major league in the state this year.