DRACONIAN and embarrassing. That is the best way to describe the SFNL’s decision to suspend two players for making themselves unavailable for a recent interleague clash.
Mildura’s Josh Martin and Wentworth’s Andy Wall, two stars of the competition, will be forced to sit out a club match because they didn’t represent the league against North Central a few weeks back.
What a desperate measure. And what a way to put clubs completely offside the interleague concept.
Martin lives in Melbourne and there are no player payments for interleague footy. So the 2017 McLeod medallist would have been forced fund his own trip to and from Sea Lake, where the game was played.
Wall was nursing an injury, but failed to get an SFNL medico to assess it, so he also copped a ban.
But, whatever the personal reasons of the players, the SFNL needs to gain some perspective here. And it starts with asking themselves, who and what are we here for?
And if it requires threatening its own members with bans for not volunteering to play, then they may be losing their way on what is really important about community sport.
The SFNL has also opened a big can of worms for themselves in banning Martin, in particular.
For years, the competition has been privileged to have quality players like Martin fly in and out for games. Ouyen United famously won a premiership a few years back with a group of six Darwin-based players making a round-trip every weekend.
But were the likes of Will and Josiah Farrer, who were undoubtedly in the best 20 players in the league, threatened with bans for not donning an interleague jumper?
South Mildura has this year contracted a star player from Queensland, Hayden Kiel, who will play about eight games on a fly-in, fly-out basis?
Is the league’s idea to threaten all these players with bans in the future?
Is that a good look for the competition?
And what sort of spirit do they think it will generate with an interleague team if they cobble together a bunch of players who don’t want to be there?
Representative sport should always be seen as an opportunity for players wanting to test themselves at the higher level. That can’t be forced upon a person.
The local cricket association doesn’t suspend players for not being available for volunteering their time to play Country Week. Basketballers aren’t forced to play for the Mildura Heat in the Big V. This is country sport.
Sunraysia’s past two interleague campaigns have been a success on the back of players wanting to be a part of it.
Credit goes to 2019 coach Brad Hards and this year’s coach, Don Falvo, for generating that passion for the green and gold guernsey.
My guess is the first question Hards and Falvo asked their prospective players was “do you want to be part of it?”. If the player said no, then why would they want them dragging down the attitude of the rest of the team?
This year, Sunraysia won its first interleague clash in 10 years. A number of young players got a chance to mix with some of the seasoned stars from other clubs in the competition. That is a great experience for them.
For the interleague concept to be successful, it has to be about the players wanting to play for the league and enjoying that experience. This is voluntary, and that needs to be remembered.
The heavy-handed approach the SFNL has taken this year could undo a lot of the goodwill.
