With the AFL’s preseason tournament having changed format in recent years, and now resembling a glorified practice match series, it’s fitting that regional areas get to host most of the matches.
Over the first two weeks of these games, clubs have visited Mandurah, south of Perth, far North Queensland and Coffs Harbour in NSW and this weekend they went into footy heartland in country Victoria and just over the NSW border to Albury.
At the time of writing, Carlton was due to play arch rivals Collingwood at the picturesque Queen Elizabeth Oval in Bendigo. The footy town is famous for producing star Geelong skipper Joel Selwood and ironically some of Carlton’s best players from their golden era of the 1970s and early ’80s, such as Geoff Southby, Trevor Keogh and Rod Ashman.
That was when the 12 VFL clubs were assigned country and metropolitan regions to secure recruits and the Blues certainly did well out of Bendigo.
The other big country town in Victoria also starting with B, but located further west, is Ballarat. They got a taste at Eureka Stadium, the home of the North Ballarat Roosters in the VFL, of Melbourne playing a young Western Bulldogs side.
During the state election campaign last year, the new government committed funding to redevelop and upgrade Eureka to turn it into an AFL ground, so the Bulldogs could play home matches there during the home-and-away season.
Having covered the Central Highlands League grand final last year for ABC Grandstand‘s grassroots local footy program, there is certainly some major upgrading to be done as the ground is exposed to the elements and extremely wind swept. But a big crowd turned out to see the Dogs and the Dees, so expect the Ballarat locals to love the Dogs playing home matches at Eureka for premiership points.
Albury, like Bendigo and Ballarat, despite being in NSW is dinky di Aussie rules, with local teams the Albury Tigers one of the domineering sides in the Ovens and Murray League.
They were packed to the rafters at the Lavington Sports Ground to see Richmond thump Port Adelaide, who like the Bulldogs fielded a young side, but again the result was irrelevant.
There’s a strong football community there who couldn’t care less about who won and lost. AFL footy was in town and they were not going to miss it for the world.
Wangaratta has had success holding matches as well, and as part of the buildup to the new season the clubs tend to hold community camps in country regions, which continue to be outstanding successes.
Country footy is such an important part of the Australian rules code and brand, and the game’s popularity is still developing. Country regions in the AFL-savvy states of Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia must be catered for too.
After all, you never know where the next Selwood, Southby, Keogh or Ashman would be found. Or even the next Kelvin Templeton and Bernie Quinlan, a couple of Brownlow Medalists who came from the famous Latrobe Valley in Gippsland in South East Victoria.
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