Wahgunyah president Darryl Hore says clubs in the region have to be open to a merger

Roos members will vote in three weeks' time on a special resolution which could see the club withdraw its senior football and netball sides from the 2023 Ovens and Murray season.

Their plight has been caused by a dramatic player drainage, mirroring what happened at Wahgunyah 12 months ago when Hore revealed his club was on the verge of going into recess.

In the end, the Lions battled on and completed the season, albeit suffering a series of chastening defeats at the foot of the Tallangatta & District League.

While new coach Brett Chapman has significantly better numbers to work with ahead of the 2023 campaign, Hore admits the cycle of struggle and survival is unsustainable as the issue of jumper spots within the 'Corowa Cluster' rears its head in a major way.

"I don't think it's rocket science; something's got to change," Hore said.

"We only got through last year by the skin of our teeth.

"We put the call out and luckily we got the numbers but that doesn't mean it won't be our turn again next year. I think it's pretty well realised by clubs in our area that something's got to change.

"Any club that closes their doors to change nowadays is a fool to themselves. It's just the landscape of football now.

"You've got to be consistently looking for ways of not only improving your club but improving sport in the area.

"We've got to be open to it (a merger). We've got to consider what's going to be the best thing for our club, our players and our future.

"They stuck strong with us last year but how many years do they continue to do that?

"It's something you've got to look at: what's going to be the best thing for us for the next five, 10, 15 or 20 years?"

Corowa-Rutherglen officials told members last week the club was in active talks regarding the possibility of a merger.

"We haven't had any contact from them at this stage but we're sitting back, believing it will come," Hore said.

"We've got to be open to the fact that it will come.

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"I don't know whether the population of our area is diminishing but the jobs are diminishing.

"Back in the heyday of Corowa, places like Uncle Toby's had 1200 employees and the population the Corowa High School had was up around 600 students but they're just not there any more."

Hore said the increasing challenge of getting netball sides on court made a merger even more appealing.

"There are too many clubs in the area," he said.

"In the past, netball numbers has always been an issue when clubs talk to each other.

"Every club has traditionally been strong with netball so if clubs were to do something, all of a sudden you've got this massive number of netballers you don't know what to do with.

"Currently, however, that's not the case, we're seeing netball start to struggle as well.

"I know the football, from our point of view, got a lot of coverage last year but the netballers struggled just as much.

"We had girls playing two games, we were struggling to fill teams each week and there was a couple of times we thought we might even have forfeited A-grade.

"It's across the board now. In times gone past, every club's been strong with netball so if you're going to do something, all you're doing is getting rid of a heap of netballers and joining footballers but we're seeing now that's not the case.

"Clubs are struggling for netballers too."

However, Hore does expect Wahugunyah to be more competitive in the TDFL this season.

"Our numbers are looking really good," he said.

"We've had good numbers at training - you'd always like better, of course - but definitely compared to last year, we're a long way in front of the mark.

"We've had guys recruiting and we'd really like people to have time away from football but unfortunately we just haven't been able to have that this year.

"We've learnt that as soon as you take your foot off the pedal, that's when things catch up with you."

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