Ashy Redbacks moving to Yarra Junior Football League

To all Ashy Players & Parents,

Although the 2008 football season is well behind us, there have been several significant events occur subsequent to the season’s completion, which I must, on behalf of the committee, communicate to all of our members.

Firstly, as some of you may have recently seen in local media reports, the Waverley Junior Football Association (WJFA) has disbanded, and as a consequence Ashburton will join Yarra Junior Football League (YJFL) in 2009 which will see us field all of our teams in this league for the first time (we have been playing U14 – Colts in YJFL for the past 3 seasons).

The move to Yarra was the result of a AFL Victoria findings and recommendations into a review of the WJFA undertaken in late September. Acceptance of those recommendations would result in the disbanding of the WJFA. Those recommendations were:

• Migration of all WJFA clubs to YJFL in 2009, with a separate WJFA based competition for U9 – U11 age groups, with U12 and upwards integrated in YJFL’s divisional based competition. This would allow the WJFA clubs to play each other (under YJFL administration) up until U11 age group.
•  Allow clubs to nominate a transfer to the league of their choice

Our decision was to accept the first option and as a result, Ashy Redbacks will play all games in the YJFL in 2009 and beyond. I must emphasise that this matter has been discussed and debated at length by our committee.

Our deliberations took into account, but were not limited to:

• Playing rules across all age groups, particularly U9 & U10 age groups. All leagues other than WJFA have modified rules for U9’s and in the case of MSJFL also U10’s.
• League administrations.
• Umpires, both in terms of quality and availability.
• Travel impact for our players & families.
• Interleague competition.
• Quality of playing standards.
• Our 3 years experience playing our U14 – Colts in YJFL.

We look forward to 2009 with excitement in joining YJFL and meeting and playing against a wide variety of clubs. More information relating to season 2009 will be conveyed in the New Year, however at the moment key dates that I can advise are:

• Registration Day – Sunday 15th February 2009 at the clubrooms.
• Season start date – Sunday 19th April 2009 (on the proviso that drought conditions do not delay the proposed start of the season).

Go Ashy Redbacks!

Peter Dockery
President