LIAM DURKIN
FOOTBALL
By LIAM DURKIN
IT’S just like the whole class getting detention.
Every senior football club in Gippsland has been accused of breaching the player points system.
Before people lose their minds and call for clubs to be docked premiership points or stripped of flags, it must be stressed that caps have not been exceeded, more so individual players have been incorrectly allocated.
Clubs are given a certain number of points in a cap, dependent on factors such as past performance, demographics and population.
“There is no breach of the caps being alleged here. It’s just wrong allocations,” AFL Victoria
community football manager, John O’Donohue, told the Herald Sun.
“There are failings at the club for misinterpreting the categories, there is fault at the league level for not overseeing and there is probably fault at the regional level for not overseeing it all.”
The issue of possible player point breaches had been bubbling for some time, before a memorandum was emailed to clubs across Gippsland earlier this month.
“Regrettably 100 per cent of clubs have been found to be in breach of incorrect player point allocations” the memo from O’Donohue said.
For the record, that is 72 clubs from seven leagues in Gippsland.
At least we’re consistent.
AFL Victoria undertook an audit on points, where it found breaches had been made across the board.
However, given, for the most part, incorrect points were only allocated to a minority of players at each club, punishments are likely to amount to little more than a “please explain”.
There are some who believe AFL Victoria should take part of the blame, feeling clubs are dealing with a broken system.
AFL Victoria did not even have a regional manager until August.
The move to the online platform PlayHQ this season has also been identified as a reason that exasperated the problem.
PlayHQ was nothing short of disastrous in 2022.
The system, introduced on the eve of the season, did not allow clubs to access players’ data until late in the year, while local supporters cited troubles trying to find information such as leading goal kickers.
From a Latrobe Valley Express viewpoint, unlike GameDay where you could copy and paste scores from an entire round, PlayHQ meant we (usually this writer), had to individually type scores from every game across three grades of the Gippsland League, Mid Gippsland and North Gippsland.
Every. Single. Score.
Questions surrounding why an audit on player points had not been completed earlier have also done the rounds, as has the overall confusion regarding just how many points a particular player is worth.
West Gippsland club Warragul Industrials had a very public points-related saga play out last month, which forced the issue to become more widespread.
Dusties, who made the preliminary final, was fined $3500 for having two players allocated
incorrect points.
While there was some who were quick to condemn Dusties, on face value it appeared a club volunteer overseeing the operation made a genuinely honest mistake amid what is, admittedly, a complex system.
The strain on volunteers is understandable, and it is unrealistic to expect people who work
and have families to be across absolutely every rule, especially when loopholes leave a number of avenues open.
Heyfield Football-Netball Club was the victim of one such loophole in 2019.
The Kangaroos were docked premiership points and subsequently lost the double-chance in the North Gippsland Football-Netball League finals after fielding a player ruled to be ineligible because he was too young for senior football.
The issue of player eligibility is not just confined to country football. Only last month Moe United Soccer Club was thrown out of the Latrobe Valley Soccer League reserves cup final after being found to have, technically, fielded an ineligible player.
The situation was made all the more confusing by the fact the Red Devils had their senior and reserves sides in the final, which usually means anyone on the roster is up for selection.
The player points system has also been queried in some quarters for failing to really make that much difference to competitive balance.
For example, Gormandale FNC used 46 out of its 46 points in Round 9 of the NGFNL last season, and still lost by 157 points to Glengarry – a team that finished ninth on the ladder.
Conversely, Traralgon Tyers United, which finished fifth, used 41 out of 41 points in Round 8 of the same season and won by 92 points against Cowwarr.
The Tigers, having not won a game for three years before the 2021 season, were given only five points more to spend on players than the Bombers, who had finished top-two the previous season.
Some anomalies also exist within the system, which offer an interesting discussion point.
Using myself as an example, I technically would not have a home club going off the player points system.
Because I attended boarding school and only played junior football at Moe Saints (Under 14s) and Thorpdale (U16s, U18s) during school holidays, I never met the 40-game threshold at either.
Considering everything that has gone on in recent years, it would appear the time has well and truly come for AFL Victoria to appoint an officer of some description to oversee everything related to player points and salary caps across Gippsland.
Or there could just be a simple solution – develop local players
