THE Bendigo Football-Netball League’s reserves numbers are under review.
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The BFNL is seeking feedback from its clubs in relation to the structure of the reserves competition, with one recommendation that teams be reduced from 18 and four on the interchange to 16 and three on the interchange.
“We’ve had some conversation around a number of different proposals and whether we should consider the reserves being 16-a-side with three interchange,” BFNL general manager Dennis Bice said on Wednesday.
“It is basically being built on the fact that there are some clubs that are really struggling to field reserves teams.
“There was a general discussion at our recent presidents meeting at Maryborough and what we’ve done is ask the clubs for feedback.
“Once we’ve got all the feedback we’ll then meet with the clubs and speak about whether we do anything with it or not.
“With the reserves this year, I think you’ll find a lot of clubs fielded full teams, but there was some dragging in a lot of blokes who haven’t played for a long time to be able to do it.
“There has also been the discussion though around, is this just a moment in time in regards to the reserves competition because in the past numbers have been fairly good. And there’s also the question of for the clubs that are well off with players, what becomes of those who don’t get a game if there are reduced numbers?”
Clubs have until the end of the month to provide feedback on the structure of the reserves competition.
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“There’s a couple of things we’ve been looking at. Firstly is the reserves competition… do we have it structured right and is it working right,” Bice said.
“The second one is the under-18s… are we happy with how that is running at the moment and looking into the pathway process from the juniors through to under-18s and then onto seniors.
“It’s all still very early and just part of a process of what we need to be looking at from a league perspective in regards to what we should be doing with the competition.
“It’s always healthy to do a review of where things are at. This is not suggesting that anything is going to change, but we’re having the discussions and we’ll see how the clubs all feel about it in their feedback.”
Strathfieldsaye won this year’s reserves flag.
