Rushworth seniors put in recess for Kyabram and District league season
Kyabram District league will have one less senior team this year with Rushworth electing to sit out the season. Here’s how it unfolded.
Kyabram District league club Rushworth is the latest team to succumb to a dire shortage of players.
The club has announced its senior team will be in recess this year, but will field reserves and two junior football teams in the hope of surviving long-term.
Rushworth won only one match to finish just ahead of wooden-spooner and winless Longwood last season.
It has been unable to secure a replacement senior coach for Damian Wust, who departed midway through last year.
President Mark Bartlett said the club’s shortage of senior players was a major stumbling block in trying to secure a new coach.
“The problem was we couldn’t get players because we didn’t have a coach and we couldn’t get a coach because we didn’t have players,” he said.
“We are just a small town, we don’t have a great deal of local young blokes.
“Also, Covid just killed us last year. Every time you went to training there would be six or seven blokes missing and because they had Covid they couldn’t play.”
Some weeks last season players were doubling up from the reserves into the seniors with the search still on for players to line-up in the reserves this year.
Mr Bartlett said the club interviewed more than 10 prospective coaches.
“They all came in with ridiculous figures, $30,000 to $50,000, they were after,” he said.
Rushworth’s plight has been well known since the league annual meeting late last year when it was agreed to allow the club to play in other grades if it couldn’t field seniors.
Rushworth originally played in the Goulburn Valley league and won five flags in six years from 1930 in a golden era that saw the club play off in 10 grand finals.
It switched to the Heathcote District where it won three premierships.
Rushworth’s only flag in the Kyabram and District league was in 2004.
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