THE Cohuna Kangas have taken the first step in a potential move to become the Heathcote District Football-Netball League’s 10th club.
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The Kangas are considering their future in the Central Murray league and on Wednesday night met with HDFNL officials at Elmore.
HNDFL chairman Leo Demeo said the league had been approached by the Kangas and Wednesday night’s 45-minute meeting was a chance to find out about the club, its history and its reasons for seeking a possible move.
“We didn’t really get into the pros and cons of our opinion on it… we want to get all their information first and a good grasp of how they are travelling as a club before we take it to our clubs,” Demeo said on Thursday.
“We’ll pass the information on to our clubs that Cohuna gave us with a view of our clubs getting back to us on their thoughts in the next couple of weeks and see what transpires from that.
“All the action has come from Cohuna’s end because we certainly haven’t chased them, so they have to convince us that it would be a good thing.”
If Cohuna was to be admitted, the Kangas would become the northern most club in the HDFNL – a further 16kms north of Gunbower.
The Kangas’ biggest trip would be the 156km away game against Heathcote.
Other travel distances would be 126kms to Bendigo, 68kms to Lockington, 106kms to Elmore and 133kms to Toolleen.
Demeo said there were three likely outcomes HDFNL clubs would consider – to welcome the Kangas into the competition next year, vote against their admittance, or hold off and consider them joining in 2017.
“They’re a well-run club, have a good junior set-up and I’d expect they’d be reasonably strong from the word go in our competition,” Demeo said.
“At this stage I don’t think we’re in any rush to make it happen; our league is travelling along well at the moment, so we’ll just see what the clubs have to say.”
This is the first year of the new HDFNL board, which Demeo said wouldn’t make a decision on Cohuna that was “unpopular” with its clubs.
Cohuna president Grant Lunghusen said the HDFNL was one of the options the Kangas were exploring.
“There’s a few reasons behind it, but the main one is the geographics of the league,” Lunghusen said.
“We head north (in the CMFL), whereas most of our kids at our footy club go south – either to uni in Bendigo or school in Echuca.
“None of our kids are employed north of Cohuna or go to school north of Cohuna, none of our townspeople shop north of Cohuna, they all migrate south.
“A lot of our kids are happy to come back home from Bendigo to play, but it’s the extra travel we do north that is a sticking point.”
Lunghusen said the club would consider the impact a move would have on all aspects of the Kangas, such as their nine netball teams and four under-age football teams (18s, 16s, 14s and 12s).
The Kangas will hold an information night for their members next Tuesday.
Cohuna is ninth on the CMFL senior ladder with a 3-12 record.
