Goulburn Valley League board member Peter Cardamone weighs in on interleague debate

Not only that, but Cardamone has a potentially winning formula corked for how the concept can attract professional eyes to country footballers and netballers.

Firstly, though, the Shepparton 100-gamer went on a trip down memory lane about the history behind the Ash-Wilson Trophy.

“The rivalry comes down to a bit of ego, doesn’t it?” he said.

“I can remember in the early 90s when the Goulburn Valley used to play the Ovens and Murray in the country champs.

“You’d have a knockout and all of a sudden you’d be playing in a Herald Sun final or whatever it might’ve been, it goes back 35 years and for some other people it actually goes back 50 years to the 1970s.

“From my point of view as a board member, a lot of great people have represented the competition — not just footy but also netball.

“That’s created opportunities in life for those people, and that’s an important reason why as a board member I wanted to really push interleague.”

As Cardamone outlined, to some players, interleague representation is their grand final.

Many clubs don’t venture deep into September season upon season, and though the calling cry to don league colours for a crack at a noisy neighbour has quietened in recent years, the pride associated with it shouldn’t.

“From us as a board, we want to give an opportunity to all our great players, whether they’re netballers or footballers, to play against our arch-rivals and experience it so they can talk about it in 20 years’ time,” he said.

“We don’t like the O&M and they don’t like us, and whilst there’s older guys like me and David Sinclair (O&M president) still involved, there’s going to be a rivalry... it’s going to be game on on Saturday.”

Cardamone’s choice, albeit tongue-in-cheek, words didn’t stop there.

“We should have won last year. In the end, I’ll be honest, I reckon their timekeepers fell asleep,” he said.

“I’m going to stir the pot here; we led by eight points and we felt like we had a minute to go.

“Next minute, as soon as the Ovens and Murray went forward, and I’m being cheeky, I reckon it went for another five minutes to get them back in the game.”

Beneath Cardamone’s good-natured ribbing lies a deeper message.

The ex-Bear devised a blueprint to revive the interleague concept which involved football zones — much like the GVL and O&M — squaring off like usual.

However, where the plan differs from the current day model is including the wider Victorian leagues, with a ‘best-of’ side selected for an exhibition match at a landmark venue.

In 2018, the GVL interleague squad strutted its stuff on the MCG’s hallowed turf during a win over the Ballarat Football League in the AFL Victoria Community Championships.

The occasion alone gave players a real reason to throw their arm up for representative selection.

Pride, passion, pure performance — that’s what Cardamone wants to see more of.

“You would have to play an interleague game, O&M versus GV, and then Bendigo might play Ballarat or whatever it is, and the best players who’ve represented their league are selected in front of a big crowd at Marvel Stadium for a curtain-raiser for an AFL game,” he said.

“It’s an under-25 concept, where that potentially is going to be in front of all the AFL recruiters.

“What’s happening now is, as you can see with Joe Richards, who came from Wangaratta and represented Collingwood a couple of weeks ago — he got picked up from interleague performance.”

As players venture into their mid-20s and beyond, the chances of smashing the ceiling into the top flight grow increasingly minuscule.

But it’s not impossible.

The chatter surrounding Richards started in 2022 off the back of a blistering cameo for the O&M, and while his rise to stardom began with the ‘enemy’, the platform is there nonetheless.

And this Saturday, it’s about to kick off again.

“We don’t like the Ovens and Murray, we want to take back the Ash-Wilson Cup and I believe it's possible with Mark (Lambourn) and Sam (Reid) and the players that’ve made themselves available and also the netball (which) we are extremely competitive (in),” he said.

“Last year we were unlucky and this year I reckon we’re going to take the cup back.”