Where to now? GVL coaches have their say on the remainder of the season

But this time around we hit the phones and polled as many Goulburn Valley League senior football and A-grade netball coaches as we could across the early part of this week, in an attempt to get a cross-section of what those in the competition were feeling.

Sports reporters Aydin Payne, Liam Nash, Rodney Woods, Meg Saultry, Josh Huntly and Tyler Maher chatted to 18 coaches, asking three key questions about the remainder of the GVL season.

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These centered around whether games should begin before metropolitan Melbourne residents can return to the region, how many home and away games need to be played to constitute a season and what the final option for the league should be.

To give you extra context, many were spoken to before Tuesday's announcement of an extension to the current lockdown which scuppered another weekend of action — which means the wording of the metropolitan residents question changed slightly from ‘this weekend’ to a more broad scope.

We've also presented the findings in a way which is easier to read — for example, although in the second question we asked for a numerical answer, you will note in the table that we have grouped the results.

Two-thirds of the coaches polled were in favour of starting the season as soon as possible — even if that meant doing so without Melbourne residents.

“I would be in favour of playing straight away,” Shepparton Swans coach Jana Bruinier said.

“Sport is so integral to our community and I feel sorry for our juniors who are missing out on playing.

“I understand it doesn’t impact me, as I don’t live in Melbourne and that’s tough for those players, but I feel like the community needs sport back sooner rather than later.”

Mansfield's Chad Owens agreed.

“It’s a bit of a risk injury-wise with the lack of continuity and I’d have to talk to the players and the club, but if they were happy then I would be,” Owens said.

Echuca co-coach Simon Maddox was also among those on board.

“I think sometimes we can get caught up in winning and losing and I think getting people back out and playing football is the most important thing,” Maddox said.

“We’re probably in a privileged position, we’re up near the top of the ladder in all our grades, but, irrespective of that, I think it’s more important that people are out playing footy and socialising and getting some normality back.”

Tatura's Paul Kirby and Georgia Ryan highlighted the need to keep the next generation engaged.

“I think it’s important to the community of the smaller towns that we play straight away. They live and breathe for footy and netball. It would be unfortunate for those Melbourne players, but I just feel sorry for all the youngsters who are missing out,” Kirby said.

“It’s not ideal for us, we have a few players in Melbourne. But it’s not just for our A-grade side, it’s the rest of the grades and juniors. Playing sport is that outlet for a lot of people,” Ryan said.

Another four were against the idea, with concerns about filling all grades of football and netball highlighted, while two coaches were unsure what the right decision would be.

Kyabram's Sara Kent was one of those who could easily see both sides of the argument.

“I find this a really challenging question to be honest, because particularly with our hometown, but our players that are from metropolitan areas predominantly are country people,” Kent said.

“I find it quite challenging that they’ve signed up and dedicated their time to try and travel back and forth to support their hometown to then sort of say we’re going to go ahead without you … I just find that difficult to answer realistically.

“It would be naive of me to answer that myself without actually discussing to see how these people are feeling.

“I think you can appreciate now with COVID-19 and the restrictions and the way it’s affecting peoples lives … my opinion is that the mental health of our players and officials and really community is what’s at the forefront.

“There’s lots of things to take into consideration. If you ask for the love of the sport would we play, then I’d say absolutely. We’re regional we haven’t got any cases yet, but is it a matter of time and how do you protect those in your community? It (the debate) is endless really, isn’t it?”

Shepparton Swans football coach Paul Hawke made a pertinent point about the question itself.

“That is a difficult one. Some clubs would be severely impacted without their Melbourne players, who most of them are some of their important players,” Hawke said.

“There is still a fair bit to play out. I think if they couldn’t play and weren’t able to travel, then we (regional) would still be having issues up here on crowds and using change rooms.”

While Seymour's Ben Davey — speaking before Tuesday's extension announcement — did not think playing straight away after no training was realistic.

“We could play, we don’t have a lot of Melbourne players and we’d like to play, but I don’t think we could,” Davey said.

“We’re not going to get to train Tuesday night and would have to get together Thursday night, so I would probably have to say no.”

Half of the coaches we spoke to were keen to play every opponent once before starting finals.

In essence that is 11 games — with most having played 10 to this stage of the campaign and Seymour and Mansfield with nine matches under their respective belts.

But in reality, with some clubs having up to three opponents left to face it would mean attempting to play a 13 or 14-round season.

“Our last three games are against sides we haven’t played yet,” Hawke said.

“I don’t think we should end the season straight away. I think we should try play all sides once.”

Mansfield netball coach Simon Dolling agreed.

“If we were in a position to play finals, I’d like us to play every other team,” Dolling said.

“That’s enough games to play finals.

“I’d be disappointed if everything got called off if we get to the stage of everyone playing everyone once.”

Kent — and Seymour netball coach Ronni Hager — were among those also highlighting the need for fairness in the draw.

“You’d want to play everyone once to make it a fair and even season, but (I don't know) whether that is possible,” Hager said.

“My opinion would be that the league needs to ensure that if they’re going to look at finals, and we open up in a couple of weeks, that the fixture needs to be revised to ensure that at least every team has played one another,” Kent said.

“I think that’s the fairest thing moving forward. I don’t how you could have a reasonable finals campaign when you have some teams that haven’t played one another.”

Another coach agreed that a 14-round season — which is what should be able to be completed if the upcoming round is the last one lost to restrictions — would be the minimum they wanted to squeeze in.

“I’d like to see everyone playing everyone else at least once,” Shepparton United's Tania Orchard said.

“If we lose this weekend’s round, that will be 14 rounds and I wouldn’t go lower than that.”

Five coaches felt finals could start straight away if they had to, while three of the 18 wanted to still strive for as many matches as possible.

“If we don't come out of lockdown for five or six weeks and then we do come out of it, let's just play finals and get into it,” Mooroopna's John Lamont said.

“People talk about fairness, but I think it matters more that we're playing.

“Look at the Picola league, they had a midweek game scheduled. We just have to do whatever we can to play. The community really needs local football and netball to be played, we've just got to do whatever we can to be playing.”

Davey agreed.

“It would great to get to play every other team once, but I don’t think we can worry about that too much now. If we are going to have a season and finals, we just need to finish it whenever it finishes and play finals,” Davey said.

Maddox felt enough had been learned from the senior football campaign so far to start finals straight away if that was the only option the league was left with.

“I think we’ve played a big enough cross-section now to tell you the truth,” Maddox said.

“You have a look at the senior ladder and there’s four sides that are distinctly above everyone else.

“I’d be really surprised if the premiership came from outside that four, no disrespect to the others.

“But everyone knew at the start of the season that we had to be flexible, we had to be agile, there was a chance there could be stops and starts and everything like that draws could change.

“It is what it is. We all get caught up in the winning and losing of it sometimes and, yes, we want to win, every time we get out on the ground we want to win and we definitely want to win premierships at Echuca Football Club.

“But reality is this season is a season unlike any before.

“I think no matter what we can do, whether it’s we end up playing two more games and finals, we play one more game and finals, we play five more games and finals — just try to get it as close as we can to normal and whatever will be will be.

“I’m sure clubs will be understanding of the situation that GV are in. They’re doing the best they can to accommodate all the clubs.

“But, yeah, it wouldn’t bother me if we played one more game or we played five more games. That’s out of our control.”

Kyabram president Peter Learmonth was of a similar opinion.

“I’d just be happy to start finals as soon as we could really to get the season done,” Learmonth said.

“Obviously that’s up to the other guys in the league. I don’t even know what the GV are thinking.

“Just getting straight into finals would be my preference.

“There’s clubs that haven’t played each other yet, so I don’t know where they stand.”

And what about a “Doomsday Option”?

Well, many coaches — 11 to be exact — felt that a finals campaign needed to be staged in order to award premierships.

“The finals part is a bit of a reward, if you don’t play finals and you cancel the season, then it’s just a second year in a row it’s been a waste. Our young list wants success and reward for hard work, I think you have to have it no matter what that finals system looks like, whether it’s shortened or sudden death, otherwise you risk getting a drop off,” Davey said.

“No matter what date we open up, they need to look straight away and say there is room here for whatever, two, three, four weeks of footy and then two, three, four weeks of finals.”

Benalla's Rhiannon Dolahenty also felt playing finals was crucial.

“With the amount of hard work put in by every association and the league, it wouldn’t be fair not to award a premiership this season,” Dolahenty said.

“I do think there would need to be a different scaling of finals though.”

Of those, the majority wanted the current final-six to remain, while five were open to shaking things up.

Benalla's Jake Pallpratt was in favour of the latter.

“I reckon everyone should play finals, maybe a with a knockout system,” Pallpratt said.

“Why not get a little bit exuberant with it? There will always be an asterisk over this season, so it’d be better to try and salvage something by doing things a bit different.”

Hawke was in the camp of keeping the final six.

“I would leave it how it is, a top-six system,” Hawke said.

“It’s easy to rush and change things, but we need to realise this is something we haven’t had to deal with before and we need to be mindful of those decisions.”

Splitting the competitions into two pools, a top eight, all 12 playing knockout finals and whatever system fitted best into the time we have left were all among the options bandied about.

One coach would be happy awarding premierships to the current teams on top of the table — and it has to be noted, that coach's team is not on the first rung of the ladder — while the other six were unsure of what the best option would be.

“I’d love to play finals, but clubs in the bottom rungs would be grateful to just get a season down. We are on the brink to still make finals. I do not think you can play around with finals — do you go to a top four? There is so many scenarios,” Hager said.

“On a wellbeing status, we would not take much for granted; every game could be the last game.

“So, every game and training run would be a bonus, just for the girls to get together and play sport.

“The aim is to keep it fun and to keep developing as much as possible, because I think it may be harder next year; girls might not want to come back.”

Ryan agreed that enjoyment was the key aspect for the remainder of the year, no matter what lies ahead.

“I’m all for playing finals, but I’m also all for the idea of playing sport for the enjoyment and interacting with friends side of it,” Ryan said.

“If we can play everyone, have a good time with our friends then that’s more important than winning I think.”

1. If the Goulburn Valley League is able to start back up before metropolitan Melbourne residents are allowed to return to the region, would you be in favour of playing?

Yes - 12

No - 4

Unsure - 2

2. What is the minimum amount of home and away games that need to be played for you to be comfortable playing finals under the current top-six system?

We've played enough already - 5

Play everyone once - 9

14 - 1

As many as possible - 3

3. If that minimum is not reached, would you like to see a different finals system in place, a cancelled season or the premiership be awarded to the team on top of the ladder?

A finals campaign of some kind - 11

Award premiership to the minor premier - 1

Unsure - 6