Ovens and Murray chairman David Sinclair reacts to Corowa-Rutherglen's return to play in 2024.
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00:00 Did you always believe this day would come, David?
00:04 Look, I did. Initially, you know, it was a real shock when we were told that they were
00:11 going to go on a recess. And at that point in time, you know, I thought once you do that,
00:18 it's going to be really difficult to come back. But, you know, working with Graeme and
00:23 just seeing what Rowan and the board were doing, you know, I had no doubt that they
00:28 were going to leave no stone unturned to get back. You begin to have your doubts when you
00:33 hear about meetings that were happening with other football clubs within the region as
00:37 to whether it was going to happen or not. But I think there's no doubt that the Coral
00:42 region have missed their football club, the town's missed their football club, they
00:45 know what it means to the community. And certainly, you know, from an Ovens of Murray
00:50 point of view, we need representation in the western side of the league and that area needs
00:56 representation in the Ovens of Murray. So, yeah, look, there were times when, you know,
01:03 I was doubtful, but I knew that these guys were going to leave no stone unturned doing
01:07 it. And I guess that there are a lot of people out there that had real doubts about whether
01:12 this was going to happen or not. And, you know, I've just been asked so many times
01:16 across the season if the Inquirer will be back. And, you know, I'm saying that they
01:20 will. And the person that's asked me the question, they had their doubts as to whether
01:24 it was going to happen. So I'm really pleased to be able to sit here today and make
01:29 the announcement along with the Coral that they will be back in 2024.
01:32 And how significant is it for your competition to be back up to 10 teams, having seen what
01:36 the year has been like?
01:38 Oh, it's, David, absolutely critical. I mean, you know, the draw last year really
01:45 was a train wreck. By the time when we found out that Coral weren't going to go into
01:51 recess, we put the draw out there. We considered changes, but we felt that given that it had
01:57 been out there for two or three months at that point, that we would just go with the
02:01 buy that Coral had not played and was going to create. And it's just been, you know,
02:05 such a stop-start season. It's been difficult for clubs, particularly, you know, Wodonga,
02:11 I think, copped two periods through the year where they never played football for three
02:16 weeks, which was really unfair to them. Nine clubs is just a really difficult number to
02:21 work with. Obviously, it creates a buy. We know when we want to start and we know when
02:26 we want to finish. And it's about constructing the draw around that. And we'll start at
02:33 Easter this year, we'll finish on the same weekend. That's a 22-week season, trying
02:37 to fit 18 rounds in. And if you're trying to do that with another two buys, you've got
02:43 to have general buys or split rounds plus two club buys, which is just not ideal. So
02:53 10 is almost the perfect number for any football league. We can have 18 rounds, everybody plays
02:59 each other once, and it's just a nice fit into the length of the season that you want.
03:05 Albeit that 10 can leave you vulnerable, obviously, if you lose a club. And if any club is out
03:12 there knocking on our door to be the 11th club, we'd be all over it. But that was a
03:18 difficulty once we went to night, if Coro didn't come back, there was certainly no-one
03:22 out there that was obvious that was going to be able to come in as a 10th club.