Ovens and Murray: Corowa-Rutherglen set a mid-October deadline for 2024 return
The clock is ticking for Corowa-Rutherglen on its planned reset and return to the O&M league in 2024. Find out what must happen if the club is to survive.
Crunch time has arrived for Corowa-Rutherglen’s planned return to the Ovens and Murray league in 2024.
It has been 162 days since the club made the monumental call to put three football teams in recess and leave a township of 5500 people without a senior club to follow.
In a matter of weeks, Corowa-Rutherglen will need to confirm it can reset and restore the O&M league to a 10-team competition with 18 rounds and no three-week breaks between matches as experienced by some clubs this year.
But to make a return reality, a minimum 50 senior list players and another 25 under-18 players must be found.
To assist, Corowa-Rutherglen has been granted 60 player points next season – 20 more than some other clubs have presently — and an additional $25,000 in the salary cap.
“It’s going to help us immensely,” Corowa-Rutherglen president Graham Hosier said.
“Everyone wants football back at the John Foord Oval, but nothing is 100 per cent.
“Our board is set on returning to the Ovens and Murray and I have great faith in our footy department that they are recruiting and are going to get us back in there.
“It’s a big job and everyone knows that.”
The O&M, which has no club banging down its door wanting to join, wants confirmation from Corowa-Rutherglen by mid-October at the latest, but preferably earlier.
“The league has been in constant communication with Corowa-Rutherglen all season around its efforts to return in 2024, with both parties expecting a commitment to be made by mid-October,” O&M general manager Kane Arendarcikas said.
“This timeline is due to budgeting and fixturing requirements, to allow sufficient time to present a draft fixture to all clubs before its final release.”
WILL ROOS RETURN?
A non-negotiable for a successful reset is a large percentage of players who played for Corowa-Rutherglen in 2022 and joined rival O&M or district league clubs this season coming back.
Cameron Wilson, Cameron Barrett, Jared Lane, Joe Hansen and Darcy Melksham are among those living and playing locally who the Roos will hope to reclaim.
They can return as one-pointers, but those same players have joined clubs that will go deep into finals or remain in finals contention in coming weeks, further delaying any confirmation of a return.
The doomsday scenario for Corowa-Rutherglen is they and others are enjoying their new clubs and want to stay.
BIG FISH WANTED
A proven formula to create some buzz at any footy club, particularly one that is residing on struggle street, is to land a star recruit.
Corowa-Rutherglen had no shortage of them in its 2000 and 2003 premiership teams — if only a player of the calibre of David Teague, David Lucas or Damian Houlihan could sign on in the current climate.
Some dared to dream of Jake Melksham pulling on a Corowa-Rutherglen jumper in 2024.
But that scenario has blown up with his form in the past six weeks for Melbourne almost certainly leading to a contract extension for 2024.
COACH CALL RIGHT OR WRONG?
Did Corowa-Rutherglen make the right decision keeping the coach it appointed only weeks before pulling the pin on 2023?
Steve Owen, admirably, took on the job no one wanted with next to no chance of halting a player exodus that was well underway.
But with no team to coach, should Corowa-Rutherglen have made the tough call and cut ties in the hope of landing a higher profile coach similar to Steve Johnson (Yarrawonga), Ben Reid (Wangaratta), Anthony Miles (Albury), Sam Murray (Wangaratta Rovers), Adam Schneider (Lavington) and Tim Broomhead (North Albury) to boost its chances of reclaiming and recruiting players?
The best case scenario is for Corowa-Rutherglen to land a gun player as assistant coach sooner rather than later.
But every club in the state is wanting to do the same and aren’t coming off a year in recess.
Announcements are pending on who will coach the reserves and under-18s in 2024.
CLUSTER CRISIS CONTINUES
Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity — doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome — perfectly sums up what has happened in the Corowa Cluster of clubs for a decade.
Corowa-Rutherglen, Wahgunyah, Rutherglen and CDHBU continue to scrap over a diminishing player pool with the area’s major league club, who many believe should survive, in real danger of being its biggest casualty.
But not even Corowa-Rutherglen’s present plight led to a sorely needed merger or two.
Rutherglen and Wahgunyah occupy the two bottom spots on the Tallangatta and District league ladder with only one win between them.
They were talking merger, but discussions fizzled in a move that has almost certainly consigned Wahgunyah to ongoing on-field pain and Rutherglen pinning its immediate future on a current crop of talented juniors.
IN BETTER NEWS
If putting three football and two netball teams back in the game wasn’t a big enough challenge, Corowa-Rutherglen has been dealing with the headache of a home ground badly damaged by floods last spring.
But in an overdue positive, one set of changerooms that went under in the flood can be reinstated and used next season.
Portables will still be required and talks are underway between the club, the O&M league and Federation Council on standards required.
The following season, a larger set of portable change rooms presently being used by Shepparton Swans will be transported to John Foord Oval.
Coaching great aims for farewell flag
Kerang will farewell coach Troy Coates after the Central Murray grand final on Saturday, with a premiership to put him in rarefied air.
Ultimate grand final guide and flag tips
The 2024 country footy season culminates this weekend with nine major league grand finals to be decided. See our tips and players to watch.