Football: Bye has presidential support

Great Southern Football League president Bruce Richardson has thrown his support behind a push for a general bye for the annual Great Southern Colts Carnival.

Four GSFL league coaches would also support a bye being introduced on the weekend given the number of colts-age players playing at league level and the effect it had on each individual club last round.

Nineteen of the 25 players who travelled to Lake Grace last weekend played league for their club the weekend before.

Richardson believed in the perfect world the GSFL would have a bye but said it was a matter of fitting it in the fixtures.

“Definitely, in the ideal world (introduce a bye) but it is a matter of squeezing it in,” he said.

“We go through this every year…we need to find another week somewhere.”

Richardson said the solution was starting a week earlier or lengthening the season to 21 weeks plus three weeks of finals, but he was also open to shortening the season.

“If clubs wanted the season shortened, we would do that with a split round or drop a round,” he said. “Obviously the ideal situation is to have six teams, 15 games over three rounds…that makes it easy.”

North Albany coach Brad Bootsma, Railways co-coach Kim Mayfield, Denmark-Walpole coach James McRae and Royals coach Darrell Panizza all support the introduction of a bye next season.

But Mt Barker coach Matt Taylor said the carnival gave the reserves a chance to play league they may not otherwise get, but he could see the positives for both sides of the argument.

Eight associations took part in the carnival with the Upper Great Southern, Ongerup Football League, Esperance District Football Association, Central Wheatbelt Football League and the Peel Football League all having byes.

Clontarf do not compete in an association while the Goldfields Football League has a colts bye, meaning the league and reserves still play.

This makes the GSFL the only association that still has games across all grades on the carnival weekend.

Panizza said a bye would give everybody the chance to have a weekend off.

“Everybody needs to be able to have a break,” he said.

“It doesn’t make any sense, I’m not saying we are dumb but obviously we are doing something wrong.”

McRae said it would be no drama starting a week early.

“If we started a week early I can’t see it being a drama…it makes it a fair playing field, all the other leagues do it.”

The Tigers were missing seven players from their league team on the carnival weekend and lost by 64 points.

The Lions were missing five from their round 10 league side, and they lost by 16 points.

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