WHEN former Sunraysia Football Netball League (SFNL) president Ros Milverton announced there would be a review into football and netball in this region, it received support from all invested parties.
Everyone from the Millewa Football League (MFL) to the AFL Commission could see its benefits.
A chance, across all levels, for clubs and administrators to have a say in the direction of the game.
The review was to be a collaborative effort, a ground up look at how the game is played, administered and perceived.
Nothing was to be off the table, but somewhere along the line it seems to have lost some momentum.
The thing about any review is it needs someone driving it, making sure deadlines are met and outcomes implemented.
We are less than a month from the start of the SFNL season and just more than four weeks from kick-off in the MFL and nothing has been finalised.
Clubs and league administrators were told last year they would receive documentation asking them to vote on the final recommendations from the review before Christmas.
We all understand there are sometimes circumstances which mean deadlines can’t be achieved and need to be changed, but almost three months after being told the review would be completed and still not have it finalised isn’t good enough.
Clubs this week finally received a list of recommendations they are being asked to vote on.
Once this has been completed you’d expect there will be another wait before the information can be collated.
I’m not criticising the review, it’s a great initiative and needed to be done.
My issue is the length of time it has taken. It should have been completed last year and ready to roll out at the start of this football season.
The boards of the MFL and SFNL, the clubs and local football and netball administrators have been fantastic in the support they have shown for this process.
The review was orginally instigated by the SFNL, but taken over by the local AFL Commission.
In the AFL’s defence, they have made a number of personnel changes and the new people they have put in place are still finding their feet, but once again it’s the lack of communication which is proving frustrating to everyone involved in local footy and netball.
Let’s get the review completed, publish the recommendations and engage everyone involved in local footy and netball.
If you want people to support something you need to be open and transparent with your communication.
There is too much at stake for local footy and netball not to get this right.
I know our new AFL Victoria area manager Tom Harley has only been in the role for a couple of weeks, but this is a real opportunity for him to show some leadership and get the review back on track and deliver what it set out to do.
