Already it’s the quartet of Golden Square, Eaglehawk, Sandhurst and Strathfieldsaye that are filling the top four rungs on the ladder – and the reserves as well.

And yes, while it’s still early in the season, it’s the trio of clubs that are enduring the three longest finals droughts – Castlemaine (2005), Kangaroo Flat (2009) and Maryborough (2010) – that fill the bottom three positions and again look like being in for long and testing years.

The BFNL is the AFL Central Victoria region’s major league, but it has become stale and all-too-familiar.

There are always going to be teams at the top and struggling teams at the bottom in any league, but it’s the repetitive nature of the competition over recent years at both ends of the spectrum that has resulted in the BFNL losing some of its sizzle.

Going back to 2013 there have been five completed seasons in the BFNL – all five have featured the big four of Golden Square, Eaglehawk, Sandhurst and Strathfieldsaye competing in the finals, joined by one other club.

In 2013 and 2014 it was Gisborne and in 2015, 2016 and 2017 it was Kyneton as the fifth finalist.

28 of the past 30 finals have been won by the big four, while you have to go back to Gisborne in 2006 for the last time a club outside of Square, the Hawks, Dragons or Storm won a premiership.

It’s now into the third year of AFL Victoria’s player points system, which has a mantra to “assist in the equalisation of competitions, stop the inflationary nature of player payments and promote player loyalty and junior development.”

The player points system was introduced into the BFNL in 2016 under a tiered system, which featured the big four’s allocation of 36, plus Gisborne, for the first year being the lowest of any major league clubs across the state.

Golden Square, Eaglehawk, Sandhurst and Strathfieldsaye were all increased to 38 points last year and Gisborne up to 46, but as far as equalisation, the points system at this stage, accompanied by the salary cap, appears to be having little impact in the BFNL.

With this being year three of the points system, this is the time frame where it’s supposedly meant to start taking some effect, yet over the course of the first three rounds the league already has an average margin of 68 points.

The past two weeks have featured scorelines that have included 232-20, 160-42, 174-88, 155-12 and 146-21 and while there’s never going to be every game going down to the wire, blowouts are too frequent.

The average margin in BFNL games has grown from 44 points in 2013 to 61 last year.

Back in 2013 there were nine games decided within a quick and only five by more than 100 points.

Last year, though, it was a horribly skew-whiff 25 out of 96 games with margins of more than 100 points and nine – three of which were finals – by less than a kick.

The finals series last year showed just how competitive the competition is when the big four play against each other, but there’s only 12 of those games in the home and away season – two of which are this weekend when Strathfieldsaye hosts Sandhurst and in a clash of the two undefeated teams, Golden Square meets Eaglehawk.

The league also had Eaglehawk v Strathfieldsaye in the grand rematch and Sandhurst v Golden Square in round one.

The same happens in round seven when Golden Square hosts Strathfieldsaye and Sandhurst meets Eaglehawk.

Doubling up those games on the same day means the competition only has six rounds – 1, 4, 7, 10, 13 and 16 – out of 18 where the four big sides clash with each other.

With that being the case the league needs the next tier of sides in South Bendigo, Gisborne and Kyneton to up the ante and take up the challenge to the big four and, hopefully, pull off an upset or two along the way.

The Bloods, Gisborne and Tigers have all had cracks at big four teams so far and played some good football – Gisborne led Eaglehawk by 27 points in the third quarter, South Bendigo led Sandhurst by 20 points in the third quarter and Kyneton pushed Strathfieldsaye to 17 points – but no scalps have yet been taken.

However, the senior footy isn’t on its own in the repetitive nature of what has become of the competition.

Combining seniors, reserves and under-18s back to 2010, 22 of the past 24 premierships across the three grades have been won by Sandhurst (eight), Golden Square (seven) and Strathfieldsaye (seven).

With the competition being lauded over by the big four, the BFNL is also lacking the eye-catching results of a genuine upset – like Inglewood produced last weekend with its shock victory over Calivil United in the Loddon Valley league.

There were only two games last year where a team that finished outside the top five defeated a team that made the finals – both were wins by sixth-placed South Bendigo, which beat both Kyneton (fifth) and Sandhurst (fourth).

Those wins by South Bendigo last year are two of what are just 30 out of 390 games in the BFNL between 2010 and 2017 where a team that missed the top five beat a team that played finals.

A vibrant league is aided by it being cyclical, but with the monotony of the big four’s dominance and ongoing struggles of Maryborough and Castlemaine, the BFNL on-field has become stale.

Take a look back at the 1990s. Admittedly, it was a decade that in the first half was dominated by South Bendigo’s four flags in five years – ’90, ’91, ’93 and ’94.

But it was decade too in which Kangaroo Flat, Kyneton and Maryborough all won premierships, while Castlemaine also played in a pair of grand finals.

Down the other end, there were even a couple of seasons in the ’90s where Golden Square was a bottom two team, while Eaglehawk collected four wooden spoons.

Looking at the battles the two clubs are enduring now, which includes an inability to field under-18 teams, it can be easy to forget that the 1999 grand final featured the two Magpies as opponents – Maryborough defeating Castlemaine by 31 points.

But at the moment outside of playing each other and Kangaroo Flat given its start to the season, it’s hard to see where their next win is coming from, let alone a return to the finals and ultimately, premiership opportunity.

However, for as enduring as the struggles of the BFNL’s two Magpies have been, you have to admire those volunteers who have worked hard to keep the two clubs afloat, but the continued grind has to eventually take its toll.

So what’s the way forward for the Bendigo league to regain the status it once held in country Victoria in the late ’80s into the ’90s as one of the genuine premier competitions when it was regularly challenging for division one inter-league titles.

Does the Bendigo league as we know it need to take on a different look to re-generate some spark?

Is it time for a serious look at a division structure within the AFL Central Victoria region that could allow the opportunity for clubs like the BFNL’s two Magpies to have some genuine cause for optimism and potentially offer some on-field light at the end of tunnel in a second tier.

On the other hand, North Bendigo and Leitchville-Gunbower have contested the past three Heathcote District league grand finals, with their dominance of recent seasons featuring a combined 42 wins by more than 100 points – 21 apiece.

And the Loddon Valley league went through the repetitiveness of Bridgewater winning seven flags in a row between 2010 and 2016, but that competition this year is now again full of intrigue.

AFL Barwon is next year introducing a promotion/relegation structure across four divisions that involves clubs from the existing Geelong, Bellarine and Geelong District leagues.

Does such a structure in the AFLCV region featuring the Bendigo, Heathcote District and Loddon Valley leagues, which involve 28 clubs, have merit whereby clubs move up and down according to performance?

The North Central league is also part of the region and could be included, but that seems to be a template cyclical competition.

Excluding Sea Lake Nandaly Tigers, who joined the league in 2016, all clubs bar Birchip-Watchem (2001) have won a premiership since 2006 and played in a grand final since 2009.

The NCFL is an eight-team competition that fields 21-a-side in the seniors. Is one of the keys to the NCFL evenness a case of less is more.

Could reducing the number of players in a senior team help to bridge the gap in that one of the differences between the top and lower sides can often come down to the bottom-end in teams with the top sides inevitably batting deeper.

As well as the tiered points system, should the salary cap, which in Bendigo is $160,000 per club, be also tiered to give the opportunity for the lower clubs to assist in their recruiting given they invariably have to pay over the odds?

However, should that be done in the context of salary caps being lowered right across the board (state-wide AFL Vic approach) to ease the burden on clubs and volunteers to continually raise the money to spend on players. In the Bendigo league alone, even if just 70 per cent of the total available cap was spent, that still equates to more than $1.1 million in player payments this year.

Back in 2008 the BFNL could uniquely boast that in the previous 14 years dating back to 1994 all nine of its clubs at the time had won premierships in what was a competition of swings and roundabouts that a decade on is now sorely lacking.

Avg margin – 49 points.

Played finals – Sandhurst (8), Golden Square (8), Eaglehawk (7), South Bendigo (7), Northern United (7), Castlemaine (4), Kyneton (4), Kangaroo Flat (1), North Bendigo (1).

Grand finals played – Eaglehawk (5), Golden Square (5), Northern United (5), Sandhurst (3), Castlemaine (1), South Bendigo (1), 

Finished in bottom 2 – Kennington (5), Castlemaine (4), Kangaroo Flat (3), North Bendigo (3), Kyneton (2), Golden Square (1), South Bendigo (1), White Hills (1).

Avg margin – 55 points.

Played finals – South Bendigo (8), Sandhurst (8), Kyneton (7), Maryborough (7), Golden Square (6), Castlemaine (6), Kangaroo Flat (5), Eaglehawk (2), Lockington (1).

Grand finals played – South Bendigo (5), Golden Square (4), Castlemaine (3), Kyneton (3), Sandhurst (2), Maryborough (2), Kangaroo Flat (1), 

Finished in bottom 2 – Eaglehawk (5), Northern United (3), North Bendigo (3), Kennington (3), Golden Square (2), Kangaroo Flat (1), Castlemaine (1), Kyneton (1), Lockington (1).

Avg margin – 56 points.

Played finals – Eaglehawk (9), Gisborne (9), South Bendigo (8), Golden Square (7), Sandhurst (6), Maryborough (4), Castlemaine (3), Kangaroo Flat (3), Kyneton (1). 

Grand finals played – Gisborne (6), Golden Square (5), Eaglehawk (4), Sandhurst (2), Castlemaine (1), Kangaroo Flat (1), South Bendigo (1), 

Finished in bottom 2 – Kyneton (7), Kangaroo Flat (6), Castlemaine (1), Lockington (1), Sandhurst (1), Gisborne (1), Maryborough (1), North City (1), Strathfieldsaye (1).

Avg margin – 65 points.

Played finals – Golden Square (8), Sandhurst (8), Eaglehawk (7), Strathfieldsaye (6), Gisborne (4), South Bendigo (3), Kyneton (3), Maryborough (1).

Grand finals played – Golden Square (5), Strathfieldsaye (4), Sandhurst (3), Eaglehawk (2), South Bendigo (1), Gisborne (1), 

Finished in bottom 2 – Castlemaine (5), Maryborough (4), Kyneton (3), South Bendigo (2), Gisborne (1), Kangaroo Flat (1)