THE Upper Loddon Cricket Association will survive into season 2024-25.
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The future of the ULCA has been clouded over the past month after a season just completed in which the competition was reduced to only four senior teams.
Reigning premier Arnold had indicated it would seek to move elsewhere if the senior competition remained at four teams, but a meeting on Monday night at Bridgewater yielded a positive result for the ULCA with a fifth team to play in 2024-25.
Bridgewater will reform next season, with the Bulls to work with the neighbouring Inglewood to fill its team.
Bridgewater - which won the flag not too long ago in 2021 - withdrew its senior team shortly before the hit-off of last season, leaving just Arnold, Boort-Yando, Kingower and Wedderburn competing.
"It was a positive meeting on Monday night... there will be a 2024-25 Upper Loddon Cricket Association season going ahead at this stage with five senior teams," ULCA president Wendy Murphy said on Wednesday.
"More teams are obviously welcome to join, but at this stage it's five senior and four junior teams.
"Bridgewater is working with Inglewood to get a combined team together, which will play under the Bridgewater name.
"The club will play a couple of games at Inglewood, which is really good to see them working together and the rest of our teams are happy with that.
"The four senior teams who were part of the competition last season have committed to playing again and we'll make some changes to our association by-laws to make it a little bit easier for clubs to bring players in on permits.
"At the moment it's a bit difficult to bring players in with the way our by-laws are written, but all in all it was a very positive meeting and we'll now look forward to the AGM in July to move forward."
Last season's senior competition was played purely as a one-day competition over 18 home and away rounds in which teams played each other six times.
While there has been no changes officially locked in yet, it's likely there will be more variety in the 2024-25 fixture.
"The format of the competition will be discussed at the AGM, but at this stage it appears most clubs are happy to have a mix of one-dayers, Twenty20s and two-dayers," Murphy said.
Past five ULCA senior premiers:
2024 - Arnold.
2023 - Kingower.
2022 - Arnold.
2021 - Bridgewater.
2020 - Kingower.
