DIMBOOLA Football Netball Club will ask the Wimmera Football League on Monday night for permission to have 16-a-side teams in the under-14s and under-17s competitions.
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The club is concerned it will fail to field enough numbers to play 18-a-side football in both grades each week of competition.
Wimmera Football League chief commissioner Greg Schultz said he was aware of the issue.
‘‘Dimboola has contacted the Wimmera league on their plight and we want to hear what they have to say on Monday night,’’ he said.
‘‘We’re grateful they have brought it to the table early and there might be other clubs who are in the same situation as Dimboola.
‘‘Warracknabeal and Nhill have had the same problem before and we’ve been able to work through the situation.’’
Dimboola club president Brenden Hoffmann said a number of factors affected junior numbers.
‘‘Population drift to Horsham for work is a major contributing factor,’’ he said.
‘‘Therefore, their children go to Horsham schools and make their own networks and, although some parents might passionately support Dimboola, their children have mates at Horsham clubs.’’
Mr Hoffman said the club was exploring many options to try to boost player numbers.
‘‘We have quality coaches. Our under-14s coach Mick Henderson and under-17s coach Justin Ward are both solid coaches with previous experience,’’ he said.
‘‘We are providing free meals after training and are contemplating buying a bus to transport players from Horsham to training at Dimboola.’’
Mr Schultz said Dimboola was not the first club to have issues with player numbers.
‘‘It has been slowly happening across the board. It is not just a Wimmera league problem, we’ve seen it happen in other leagues too,’’ he said.
Mr Schultz said low player numbers did not mean the club was struggling.
He said clubs often struggled with player numbers in a particular age group one year and then found themselves with too many players the next year.
He said it was not a problem if Dimboola played with 16 on the field if it could not field an 18-player side.
‘‘It is not the end of the world dropping to 16 men, but it is not something we want to bring in across the board,’’ he said.
Mr Schultz said he was not opposed to asking teams to play with 16 on the field when teams could not make up the numbers in a particular week.
‘‘If clubs could field 18 then they could play with 18, and if they could only field 16, well for that week the opposition might just sit out two players or lend them to the other team,’’ he said.
‘‘It has been done before when sides are short.’’
Mr Hoffmann said the club wanted to see junior numbers drop to 16-a-side across the board.
He said if the two wings were taken off the field, there could be a cap of 25 junior players in a grade for each club.
He said some clubs had 35 juniors registered for a team while others had 20, which did nothing to contribute to the health of the league.
Mr Hoffmann called for less focus on winning in juniors.
He instead wants more attention paid to developing the skills of young footballers and making sure they enjoyed playing the game.
‘‘Clubs and coaches need to move away from the ‘win at all cost’ mentality in junior sport,’’ he said.