Tatura’s John “JR” Ryan has been one of the most respected and experienced observers of country football, particularly in the Goulburn Valley League, for more than 60 years.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
A player, a coach, a selector and media personality JR has done it all and is well qualified to express his opinion on the state of country football as he does in this article as another season of country football approaches.
For more than 100 years, football across the country has ebbed and flowed; sound administration and the availability of resources and jobseekers allowed teams to experience success and, likewise, many clubs experienced times when success eluded them.
The bottom line was always knowing that, in most instances, your team, club or town was competing on a mostly even playing field.
What’s changed? Eight years ago the AFL needed to be evened up and made more sustainable — a concept no-one could argue with.
With that came the introduction in country football of the salary cap and player points.
On reflection, in Goulburn Valley League, this decision has made the competition more of a one-sided affair, evidenced by the domination of a couple of clubs over the past 10 years.
People tend to lose interest in attending their team’s games because they are confident about who will win the premiership before the season starts.
The argument around the point system has been ongoing.
Perhaps now, on review, it would be a good time to ditch a system that certainly hasn’t delivered the results that were expected.
Prior to the points, the GVL had 10 different premiers in the previous 14 years.
In the 2024 season, the bottom five sides were more often than not playing at or near maximum points.
Echuca, on the other hand, hovered around 27 points.
Echuca is a fantastic club with amazing people involved and it has set up a dynasty that could net many more flags in the next few years.
Echuca is simply playing to the rules in place and is in a fortunate position to have access to many more resources in its junior under-18 program, merely from the population alone.
Throw in excellent programs and coaching/academies. It is difficult for a lot of smaller clubs to compete.
The points were designed to even out the competition by promoting locals/juniors.
A town of 10,000-plus against towns of 3000 to 4000 is an imbalance based on numbers alone.
Clubs should never be hamstrung in selecting their best players; this creates a lot of administrative work as well.
When selecting your team is predetermined by a fixed quota of points and somebody gets left out purely because their points put a team over its maximum, then the game has concerns.
Do we need both points and a salary cap?
In my opinion, a well-administered salary cap should be enough.
Sides can recruit who they like and negotiate payment without the added hindrance of whether they can fit under a strict points scheme.
There must be some flexibility, at least.
A teacher coming to town for work should not come as a top-point player.
The inconsistency in the location of points is another area of concern that needs discussion.
From what I see and hear around the traps, the overwhelming cry from football supporters is to have an even competition.
Across the state, many leagues are experiencing exactly the same unevenness as the GVL.
Quite a few ex-coaches and players have spoken to me about the league’s plight and the noticeable decline in the overall standard of play.
There are many reasons behind this, such as youngsters working part-time jobs, finding other things to do or not liking football.
Among those reasons sitting front and centre is the impact of the points on recruiting success and creating a competition that is interesting and exciting.
Having put forward my reason for scrapping the points system, it would be a massive backflip from head office and one they probably would rather not have to take.
In this instance, perhaps a fair short-term compromise would be the following: Use a sliding scale determined after the ladder positions from the final round of the previous year.
Also, any player coming into the under-18 comp should be one point if they have a senior game.
The club that wins the grand final would have no loss of points. Set points for each year based purely on ladder positions from the previous season.
My final comment on how things are managed across the leagues: Is it time for all leagues to go back to running their own administration?
Things seemed to be okay in the previous 100 years and the AFL attempt at evening out competition through a centrally controlled mantra has had the opposite impact to what was expected and hoped for.
It takes courage to introduce a new, radical scheme and to then admit it is not operating as expected.
At the very least, a review of its operation is called for where grievances can be aired and, hopefully, solutions can be agreed upon.
If it’s okay for the AFL to operate with a salary cap but without points, it should also be fine for our country leagues.
— John Ryan (JR)
Contributed content