The old saying of ‘a week being a long time in politics’ can equally be applied to Rd 5 footy in the VAFA, where regrading takes place each year after the first four rounds of Women’s, Under 19’s & Thirds’ competitions. The aim is to stabilize and equalize each division in the various grades of these competitions and remove the obvious anomalies.
Last week we talked about the honour and bravery of our two Senior Women’s Teams taking up the challenge of moving up to A Grade after both teams were undefeated after their first four rounds in their respective divisions. Well, they certainly found out what it was all about after they were given a ‘baptism of fire’ by being fixtured to play the top undefeated Caulfield Grammarian teams away, and at the difficult times of 8.30am and 10.30am. This scheduling meant that eight girls spread across the two teams could not play due to previous early morning commitments and the result was that neither team scored a goal in their A Grade debuts. It should only get easier from here, and the coaches and players are keen to learn from this experience, but this week they are fixtured away again to Old Geelong at those same times of 8.30am & 10.30am.
We also saw our Thirds team regraded, but in their case, it was upwards by TWO grades; from Div 5 where they were 3/1 and up to Div 3 and while they were quite competitive against Parkdale at home, they found them too strong and went down by four goals. We have to query how it can be justified that any team that is not undefeated, nor sitting on top of the ladder, can be pushed up by two grades. Another anomaly in this regrading process shows that in their Division last weekend, there was a game where St. Bedes/Mentone won by about 35 goals – so much for equalization - and this week the boys are travelling to Mentone for a Friday night game.
Good Luck to all three teams as they take up the Challenge!