AS difficult as it was to navigate through, outgoing Heathcote District league chairman Peter Cole has no doubt the challenge of dealing with COVID galvanised his clubs.
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Cole, with the support of his board, steered the HDFNL through its most testing period ever across 2020 and 2021 when COVID, firstly, forced the abandonment of an entire season and, secondly, left another incomplete.
It was a time that required strong leadership and just as he has done all through his reign as chairman, Cole never shirked an issue.
In what was a year in 2020 in which ultimately all community football/netball was put on hiatus as the COVID pandemic caused widespread disruption all over the world, in Victoria, it was the HDFNL that became the first league to call off its season in May.
The HDFNL's decision then sparked a domino effect of community football/netball leagues across the state following suit and also abandoning their seasons.
As Cole enters his final days as HDFNL chairman, although it was a period of time that was enormously difficult for the league and its clubs to work through given the constant uncertainty, on reflection he is able to find a pair of benefits for the league from the COVID experience.
"I think COVID really strengthened our resolve as a league to bring everyone closer together because they could see what we were trying to do was for everyone's benefit," Cole said this week.
"Looking back, what we went through in 2020 was incredibly challenging with the constant uncertainty and, ultimately, we were the first league in Victoria to call the year off.
"That night when we went to Elmore and made that decision to call the season off... we just weren't getting any direction from the government or AFL Victoria.
"I remember getting a phonecall from AFL Victoria the next day saying what a great decision we had made, but I hung up on them... they weren't there when we needed them to be and we ultimately made the decision for them.
"The Loddon Valley followed suit two weeks later and then it just snowballed from there with leagues cancelling their seasons."
The following year in 2021 through what was a stop-start season as sporting competitions were impacted by COVID restrictions, in September the HDFNL was again the first to make the call to put an end to the uncertainty and pull the pin on its season having had to abandon five of its 18 home and away rounds.
There was no finals series played and all teams that sat on top of the ladder were declared "minor premiers".
"We were the first again to call the season off the following year when we had got a start, but in the end we were just going nowhere," Cole said.
"That was a much easier decision in 2021 because all the clubs were on board in terms of calling it off. I never had anyone say we made the wrong call in either of those years."
LIFTING THE UNDER-17S TO UNDER-18S FOR 2021
As well as the galvanising of his clubs brought on by dealing with the challenge of COVID together, Cole also believes one of the positives out of the pandemic for the league was lifting the junior football age group from under-17 to under-18.
The topic of lifting the competition from under-17s to under-18s had been regularly brought up over many years in the HDFNL without getting enough support for change, but with the entire 2020 season wiped out the league made the amendment for 2021 in an effort to avoid a potential mass exodus of players seeking to go elsewhere to an under-18 competition to get in a final year of under-age football.
Three years on the HDFNL remains under-18s in line with the neighbouring Bendigo, Loddon Valley and Kyabram District leagues.
"I tried to sell the vision that, ultimately, we were preparing our players once they come out of under-17s to go into other leagues with under-18s," Cole said.
"We were losing 50 to 60 players a year who were going into other leagues to play under-18s.
We were losing 50 to 60 players a year who were going into other leagues to play under-18s
- Peter Cole
"That was tough going changing that, but I think the proof is in the pudding with Mount Pleasant. 10 years ago they didn't have an under-17 side, but of this year's senior premiership team, 15 of them have come through the under-18s.
"If anything good was to come out of COVID then that was probably it because it was an easier sell to the clubs to increase the age group so those kids would all still be able to go up together. As bad as COVID was, that was a positive."
CLUBS WANTING TO JOIN THE HDFNL
Throughout Cole's tenure as chairman that began in 2018 following a year on the board the HDFNL has proven itself to be a destination league, but remains a nine-club competition.
Over the past two years Marong, Maiden Gully YCW and Cohuna Kangas have all made attempts to join the HDFNL, but entering 2024, the trio all remain in their existing leagues.
"I really feel sorry for Marong in particular. Maiden Gully was always going to be tougher because they didn't have an under-18 team when they applied," Cole said.
"We had accepted both clubs (Maiden Gully YCW and Marong) at club level in 2021, but the commission knocked them back.
"Maiden Gully YCW then appealed, Marong didn't because they had been told by the commission if you stick with our new under-18s this year we will then clear you.
"When they've put in again this year to join, if it had been a week earlier our clubs would have voted them in.
"But in the meantime the commission came out with a three-tiered scenario of what was going to happen in the future and our clubs put the shutters up and said we are not saying yes or no to anybody because going forward we don't know what's going to happen.
"We had three clubs wanting to come to us and that's good to know that we must be doing a lot of things right because they see value in what we are doing."
UNDER-15 PROPOSAL BEING KNOCKED BACK
Meanwhile, one of Cole's major disappointments as he prepares to step down is the league was unsuccessful earlier this year in getting its proposed new under-15 football competition for next season approved by AFLCV.
"We got no reasoning as to why it was knocked back, just that it was refused," Cole said.
"Our job is to promote juniors and get them playing sport and we had up to six clubs that would have had an under-15 team for a competition going forward, which keeps those players in the club, but we were told no.
"I've been hearing that up at Leitchville-Gunbower half those kids who would have played in their under-15 team are now looking to play at Echuca-based sides.
"Then the club has to work to get them back. I'm very big on junior sport and when that got knocked back I thought, why am I doing this because I'm belting my head against the wall and it just feels that everything we put in for gets knocked back.
"Overall looking back, it will be others to judge whether I have done a good job as chairman.
"I feel through my time I have been able to lift the profile of the league, but the main difference I now feel with our clubs is when I first got on the board the clubs only thought about themselves, which isn't a bad thing.
"But now they are thinking of the league as a whole. We have made some big decisions over the past six years and the clubs very much think now about what is best for the league."
