Ovens and Murray Football Netball League chairman David Sinclair on the search for a 10th team

Talk of finding a 10^th club to replace the Roos has rumbled on since the severity of their predicament around player numbers became public knowledge.

Corowa-Rutherglen's proposal to withdraw from all O and M football as well as A and B-grade netball in 2023 was endorsed by 98 percent of voting members this week, reducing the competition to nine teams.

But league chairman David Sinclair insisted their focus was on welcoming the Roos back to the table by the end of this year, not touting for new blood.

"We're not finding a 10th team any time soon and even if there was one out there, the likelihood of getting them in for 2024 is remote," Sinclair said.

"To go through the process of moving from one league to another is generally a minimum of two years, sometimes three or four depending on where they're coming from and whether that league's prepared to let them go or not.

"Leagues will always fight to the death to keep their clubs.

"First of all, we've got to identify a club to come into the competition and you just can't go out there and start shopping around, looking for clubs.

"They've got to be in a position where they want to take the next step to the next level.

"With great respect to the Tallangatta League and the Hume League, to go from those leagues to the O and M, it is a big step.

"A club's got to be prepared to take that step and right at the minute, in this environment, clubs are just fighting to maintain what they've got without trying to push to the next level.

"We've spoken to no-one, officially or unofficially.

"If there was an obvious suitor out there to go and approach, if we knew there was a club out there that was champing at the bit to come into the O and M, we'd be all over it, even if it meant that next year we were an 11-team competition.

"We'd rather have that than a nine-team comp.

"But at the moment, there's no obvious suitor and Corowa is part of our family so we'll do everything we can to maintain their presence in the O and M and hopefully get them back in for 2024."

Ensuring their status as a nine-team competition is only temporary will be as high as any item on the Ovens and Murray agenda from now on.

"It's extremely important," Sinclair said.

"The fixturing part of it, with a nine-team competition, makes it really difficult to be flexible with your draw.

"We've had a look at how next year could be set up and Good Friday is the last weekend in March, so that's traditionally when we would start.

"If we were to go into the year as a nine-team competition, start at Easter next year, finish the same weekend that we are this year, we're going to have to put in another general bye, at least one, maybe two, and still have the two byes.

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"Is that workable? I don't think it is.

"I don't think you can go into a season where you've got potentially six or seven breaks across the year.

"It really does impact your flexibility with your draw, your ability to put in general byes, to start when you want to start and finish when you want to finish.

"When you've already got two byes there, you pretty much know when you've got to finish and you've got to work backwards from there, which means the start date next year would potentially be the middle of April and we'll miss Easter, which is a massive weekend for the competition.

"The O and M is seen as one of the best competitions in regional Victoria, if not the best, and we need to maintain that status.

"The fact we're going back to a nine-team comp has probably hurt our reputation, there's no question about that, but with what's left we need to make sure we continue to be a strong, viable and competitive competition."

The Roos will need to declare by the end of October what their intentions are when it comes to season 2024.

"We like to have our draw out by the end of November because a lot of the other leagues wait and form their draw around what we do," Sinclair said.

"This is going to be an awesome year.

"We've seen amazing recruiting across the summer and I think Wangaratta go into the season as favourites but there's four or five clubs that have got genuine aspirations to challenge them.

"I think there's seven or eight clubs you could easily make a case that they'll play finals.

"Look out for the netball comp, too, because I think it's going to be a strong year for that as well."

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