MAIDEN Gully YCW will have to go through the appeals process with AFL Central Victoria if it's to make the move from the Loddon Valley to the Heathcote District league next year.

The Eagles didn't get the required support from LVFNL clubs at a meeting on Monday night to be granted its desire to join the HDFNL.

As such, the next step for the Eagles in their process is to appeal to AFLCV - a move the club was already well prepared for.

"It was no surprise to us (the vote going against the Eagles)," Maiden Gully YCW president Chris Garlick said.

"It's a difficult process for clubs to be put in the position of having to vote on seeing other clubs leave their league, so we had no expectation at all that the clubs would vote to see us go."

Under the constitution, the Eagles needed to have six of their eight fellow clubs vote in favour of their motion to have their "resignation from the LVFNL be accepted" for the club to be cleared to make the move to the HDFNL.

The Bendigo Advertiser understands the vote was overwhelmingly against the motion.

The HDFNL has already taken its first step in the process by confirming last month it would accept both Maiden Gully YCW and Marong next year.

Marong has also flagged its intention to seek a move to the HDFNL next year, but no official application has yet been lodged.

The Eagles' desired move to the HDFNL is based around providing greater opportunities for their junior footballers and netballers.

The Eagles this year withdrew their team from the under-18 football competition that they have been a perennial power in, leaving the competition with just four sides, one of which is the East Loddon composite team.

READ MORE: Junior pathway the key priority for Marong in HDFNL ambitions

"We advised the league prior to Christmas that if it wasn't going to be a stronger competition than last year we'd be unlikely to compete this year," Garlick said earlier this year in confirming the Eagles' under-18s withdrawal.

Garlick added on Wednesday the Eagles were also concerned by there not being a full quota of junior netball sides in either the LVFNL's 13-under, 15-under and 17-under netball grades.

"Our submission is based around the lack of pathways for our junior football, and in particular, junior netball," Garlick said.

"They (AFLCV) have always talked about pathways for juniors to play at the one club and right now those pathways don't fully exist for us and it's purely the demographic we're in. We are basically a city club playing in a rural competition and people may say the Heathcote District league is the same, but it has more city teams in it in terms of White Hills, Huntly and North Bendigo and five of their clubs have a junior football structure below the under-18s.

"We understand the Loddon Valley clubs have to vote for what is in their best interests, so we will now appeal to the AFL Central Victoria commission with the hope that we receive a vote of confidence in us as a committee of management to be doing the right thing by our club.

"We have a very stable committee. However, our secretary, vice-president and netball umpires have kids playing in age groups that don't have a full complement of teams and have indicated their kids would play elsewhere next year, so we could lose 40 per cent of our committee, which we can't afford."

LVFNL chairman Simon Tuohey said the league as per AFL Victoria protocols was in the process of providing the Eagles with the official correspondence as to why their motion to leave the league was denied.

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