Grand plan for footy finals

Brad Kingsbury.
CASEY Cardinia Football League finals would be played on the Sunday after the AFL grand final if a proposal put forward to clubs is accepted.
The change to the finals setup, which would effectively make the Casey Cardinia League the numberone competition in the Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League (MPNFL), is contained as one of three fixture options for 2007 sent to clubs for consideration last week.
With a bye now being forced by the withdrawal of Dingley, the MPNFL has been forced to revamp the draw for the now 11club league.
While two options allow for the finals to finish on AFL preliminary final weekend, as has been the case for several seasons, the third would see the homeandaway season extended to 20 weeks, culminating in a standalone grand final on the last Sunday in September.
It would be a return to a similar schedule used by the old South West Gippsland Football League in its 1960s and 1970s heyday and provide acknowledgment of the stunning growth of the Casey Cardinia League in stature in the past two years.
Enormous (and growing) local support of the competition, coupled with this year’s record grand final crowd at Berwick, were among the catalysts for the plan and should it gain support, Berwick president Peter Jensen said it would be bigger again.
“Could you imagine how many people would come and watch that game? It would be huge,” he said.
“We as a club haven’t had time to think about it too much yet, but I think it could get a fair bit of support. I like the idea. I believe there are a few other country leagues that do it and it’s a great success.
“It’s part of the Casey Cardinia League moving forward and the more I think about it the more I like it.”
Officials from Hampton Park and Keysborough said that the question that needed to be addressed was whether an extension of the football season was worthwhile.
MPNFL deputy chairman Russell Jacgung said the idea had been put forward as an option for consideration by the Casey Cardinia clubs in response to the rapid growth of the league and great interest in the competition across the district.
He said that clubs would need to decide which option they preferred and inform the MPNFL administration office, which in turn would finalise the 2007 draws to be put before the league’s annual general meeting on Monday, 4 December.