Wangaratta salary cap bust the biggest country footy story of 2023
The 2023 country footy season was packed with action on and off the field. See the stories that shaped the year.
The 2023 country footy season had not even started when the biggest news story of the year broke.
Wangaratta was found to be in breach of the salary cap following its 2022 Ovens and Murray league grand final win with a $28,000 fine and other penalties dished out by AFL North-East Border.
But the story escalated when the O & M league took the unprecedented step of taking the premiership from Wangaratta in a move that sent shockwaves around the state.
There have been plenty of other controversies and tragedy in 2023, but nothing came close to a club losing a hard-earned flag.
Here are the top 10 biggest stories of 2023.
1. ULTIMATE PRICE PAID
Multiple clubs across the state have been dealt penalties for salary cap breaches.
But none had paid the ultimate price of being stripped of a premiership until Wangaratta suffered that fate this year.
Wangaratta beat Yarrawonga in a three-point thriller in the 2022 Ovens and Murray league grand final and unbeknown to all outside the club’s inner-sanctum, a storm of monumental proportions was brewing.
Wangaratta was fined $28,000, lost four player points and couldn’t earn premiership points from the first two rounds.
Those penalties were meted out by AFLNEB and accepted by the club until the O & M board came over the top and stripped the 2022 flag when it ruled Wangaratta had contravened the league’s rules for being over the salary cap.
Wangaratta launched an unsuccessful appeal against the O & M decision on grounds including being a victim of double jeopardy and losing the flag was a “manifestly excessive” penalty.
Wangaratta’s turbulent season ended with a preliminary final defeat and the rest of the footy world on notice about what will happen in the event of further salary cap breaches.
2. PLAYER POINTS PAIN
Swan Reach had climbed to the top of the Omeo District league ladder when its season was turned on its head following a player points breach involving four team members who played in eight victories with incorrect points allocations.
Four players wrongly played as one-pointers in the first half of the season and Swan Reach’s plight was made worse when there was an exodus of players before the June 30 clearance deadline.
It had to forfeit a match to eventual premiers Swifts Creek late in the season and finished wooden spooners.
3. RECESS TO RESET
Weeks before the salary cap controversy exploded, the O & M league was dealing with another major headache when Corowa-Rutherglen decided to put its three football teams in recess for 2023 following an exodus of players.
The talent drain started when the club couldn’t find a coach to replace Peter German, who had taken up a job in the WAFL after a disappointing end to 2022.
Corowa-Rutherglen’s problems were compounded by major flooding of its home ground on the banks of the Murray River.
Left with nine teams, the O & M fixture suddenly had clubs with extended breaks between matches.
Corowa-Rutherglen delivered on its promise to return in 2024 under senior coach Steve Owen, but worryingly many of the players who were at the club in 2022 haven’t returned.
4. CLUB MOURNS FOR DALLAS
Tragedy struck in the Bendigo league’s under-18s competition in late May when Castlemaine’s Dallas Keogh-Frankling died after a match.
The 17-year-old was tackled heavily in the last quarter against Kyneton and collapsed in the changerooms afterwards.
He was taken to Kyneton hospital by ambulance and died before he could be transferred to Melbourne.
Yarrawonga’s O & M premiership celebrations ended on a sour note when player Jess Koopman suffered serious facial injuries when fireworks exploded in his face in the days after the club’s thrilling win against Albury in the grand final.
He spent six days in an induced coma in a Melbourne hospital.
A 45-year-old Yarrawonga man has made one appearance in court on reckless conduct endangering serious injury and possession of an explosive substance charges.
Koopman is expected to make a full recovery.
5. SQUARE’S SHOCK COACH CALL
Golden Square downed arch rival Sandhurst by six points in one of the best Bendigo league grand finals of recent memory in September.
Square’s first flag in a decade came on the back of a 17-match winning streak, but with celebrations seemingly still in full swing, the premiership-winning coach Christian Carter was dumped and replaced by reserves coach Brad Eaton.
The bombshell move followed an end-of-season review that highlighted “the need to bring new skill sets into the role to improve how we develop our younger players”.
But, Carter was left feeling “deeply saddened” and still in the dark as to the reasons why he got the chop.
The turbulence continued with the loss of half the premiership-winning side and club president Ian Symons and three other board members standing down in the lead-up to the club’s annual meeting in December.
Also moving on after coaching a club to a flag was Osborne’s Joel Mackie, who must depart under the Hume league team’s policy of a coach having a maximum tenure of four years.
Mackie will coach rival club Jindera next year.
6. RIDING OUT STORM
The Picola District league finished 2023 on a high when moves to create a new competition in the Goulburn-Murray region were knocked on the head.
Clubs from the Picola and District, Kyabram District and Murray leagues were wooed to join the new competition to be initially administered by the Murray league and be affiliated with the AFL.
AFL Goulburn-Murray Commission ruled the new competition must have eight clubs from the outset, but when it mattered most there were only seven including two from the unaffiliated Picola District league.
The biggest impact was on Tocumwal which had left the Picola District league in the hope others would follow it into a new competition.
The last play in the saga was Tocumwal being accepted back into the Picola District league.
7. BYE, BYE BENDIGO
Push came to shove in a seemingly never ending pursuit for the best structure of competitions in central Victoria when Kyneton quit the Bendigo league after 76 years.
Kyneton, which had not won a flag since 1997, was accepted into the lesser standard Riddell District league, which the club hopes will be a more “fair and equitable competition” compared to Bendigo.
A failed last ditch bid by the AFL Central Victoria Commission to keep Kyneton was setting up a new competition that included Bendigo league battlers, Castlemaine and Maryborough, Loddon Valley clubs Maiden Gully-YCW and Marong and Cohuna Kangas from the Central Murray league.
The year ends with obvious tensions between the commission and Bendigo league over what the future holds with the most recent blow up being rejection of a Maiden Gully-YCW under-18 team reforming to play in the Bendigo league.
8. UP IN SMOKE
Fish Creek’s celebrations of its latest premiership victory in the Mid Gippsland league were soured when its clubrooms housing priceless memorabilia were burnt to the ground in a deliberately lit fire in early November.
One of the most successful clubs in the state with 37 senior flags, Fish Creek has been left with the painful prospect of playing out of temporary facilities next season and beyond until a permanent new home is built.
Three days before the fire the clubrooms were broken into and canteen vandalised.
“You can rebuild the building but we’ll never be able to replace those physical memories like the trophy cabinets and honour boards, they’re all gone,” club president Ray Stefani said.
9. MORE MERGERS
Southern Mallee Giants and Rainbow-Jeparit finished the 2023 season as runner-ups in the Wimmera and Horsham District leagues, but come next season they will be playing as one after a yet another merger in the Wimmera-Mallee.
The driving force behind the union was the age-old problem of not having sufficient players, particularly juniors.
They will be known as Southern Mallee Thunder and will play in the Wimmera league.
Southern Mallee Giants were a merger of old Mallee league combatants Hopetoun and Beulah, and Jeparit-Rainbow also played in the now defunct Mallee competition following a 1995 merger.
Kieran Delahunty, who coached Southern Mallee Giants into this year’s grand final, has been appointed coach for 2024.
Maryborough Rovers and Royal Park have also merged to become the Maryborough Giants in the Maryborough-Castlemaine league.
10. MEDAL MIX UP
In the worst nightmare for any football-netball administrator, the Goulburn Valley league crowned the wrong winner of the A grade netball best and fairest this year.
Tatura’s Elsie Boyer was initially announced as the Wellman Medal winner, but upon discovery of a miscalculation of votes she was mistakenly presented the award.
Seymour’s Sarah Szczykulski, who had finished two votes behind Boyer, was installed as the correct winner in the days following the count.
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