Football Operations

FOOTBALL OPERATIONS

CRAIG LAKE

Vice President and Football Director

Football was back in 2022! After a couple of COVID interrupted years, we got through an extended 16 round home and away season, plus three weeks of finals.

For the first time since 2019, we ran our full Interleague program, Under 8 and 9s days, Under 10 Lightning Premiership, Under 12 Futures, Team of the Year matches and League Awards night. Most importantly, across the season we saw plenty of great games, great friendships and great fun being had by all.

We were delighted to provide a competition for 474 teams, made up of 10,508 registered players. In total, we had 46 teams become YJFL Premiership winning teams as Grand Final day returned to the YJFL.

Behind the scenes there were many changes that will help keep the YJFL at the forefront of junior football.

We migrated to the new PlayHQ platform this year, replacing the SportsTG/GameDay platform that we’ve used for over a decade. Ford Park became the new home of the YJFL, replacing Bulleen Park which had served the League so well for so long.

Ford Park provided us with a fantastic playing surface for games every Sunday, housed a number of other League run events, and of course became our new administration base. We were fortunate to work with AFL Victoria to participate in an “Auskick to Club Football” under 7 pilot in August and September which we hope will provide clubs with a strong platform to build their teams for Under 8 competitions in 2023.

All of that said, we acknowledge coming out of two interrupted seasons, there are several things that we can focus on for improvement next year. A key priority for us is to work with Colbrow to return our medic coverage to every ground, for every game. Not only do Colbrow provide support for club trainers on match day, the information they collect enables the YJFL to track data relating to injuries on match day.

Growing our umpire numbers will be another key focus going into 2023. While COVID took a season and a half away from our players, it also deprived our umpires of match experience in that time too, meaning we had more umpires with less match experience needing to fill games this year. We would like to thank the clubs who supported us by providing club umpires where we were short, or by promoting umpiring to your playing cohort. Our umpire numbers grew as the year went on, and we were able to fill almost every match by the end of the home and away season. We have about 100 umpires who also play in the YJFL and it’s something we would encourage all clubs to continue to promote to your players ahead of the 2023 season. Thank you also to BJS Insurance for their sponsorship of our umpires – as part of our sponsorship, all umpires received a free umpiring shirt this year with the BJS logo on the back to wear while umpiring YJFL matches. It was a busier year on the Conduct front than we would have liked, and we are looking at a number of changes to officials and spectator behaviour rules ahead of the 2023 season, as well as some strong campaigns around enhancing the match day experience for our players and our umpires.

We always receive plenty of feedback relating to Fixturing and Grading. We anticipate a reintroduction of the YJFL grading committee armed with a full season of match performance for all competitive grades in 2023. We also used new fixturing software in 2022 and I am confident that the refinements made to it during our 2022 fixturing experience will hold us in good stead for next year and beyond. For the first time, we ran a Grading Pool in Under 11, 12 and 13 competitions. The feedback we received on this was positive, and it is something we will discuss with clubs ahead of the 2023 season to see if they are keen to continue with next year.

The City of Banyule have welcomed us as tenants at Ford Park this year, and we appreciate their support as well as that from the other eight councils that are home to YJFL Clubs. Facilities are continually being improved to make our clubs safer for our players, and more comfortable places to be around for our community.

I would like to acknowledge the contribution that the YJFL administration team made this year.

Every staff member took on additional responsibilities throughout the year to get us through the season and their hard work and dedication was much appreciated. I’d also like to thank Theo and Ryan from PA Group who assisted with the fixturing software, and Dani and the team at PlayHQ who went above and beyond - often late in the evening - to get our fixtures up on the website.

It would be remiss not to acknowledge the contribution that Shaun Dowling made to the League in his time as Football Operations Manager at the YJFL – we wish him all the best in his future endeavours.

Every Sunday in winter we see almost 250 matches across a large geographical area of Melbourne played every Sunday – that only happens because of the amazing work done by our club committees, club volunteers and parents.

To every one of you – thank you for the role you play in putting our teams on the ground.

The end of the 2022 season will mean it’s the end of the road for some players and their families who will have finished their time in junior football. We hope you have enjoyed your journey in the Yarra Junior Football League and that you continue to participate in football at senior level in future years.

Like everyone, I am already looking forward to a successful 2023 YJFL season.