Wednesday, 21 September 2022

 Ms McLEISH (Eildon) (19:32): (6550) My matter tonight is for the Minister for Community Sport, and the action I seek is for the minister to provide funding to the Yea Football Netball Club so that the football oval can be repaired and resurfaced. It is actually in a very sad state at the moment, and the repair will include the installation of new drainage and irrigation systems. It needs to be lasered, resurfaced and then re-turfed. The council has estimated, very roughly, that this could be around $300 000. This is beyond the scope of the football netball club at the moment in Yea. They have had a really tough year. They had a forced amalgamation for the footballers early on with Broadford, who were also struggling for numbers. It meant they only had three home games, which impacted very much on their finances. They have got stronger netball teams and, despite all the doom and gloom, the under-15s and under-11s netballers were premiers. As the finals came along they were going to be hosting a preliminary final—I think it was a preliminary final—for the outer eastern AFL, and the ground was unplayable, so they lost that. That was a loss of another $7000 or $8000 to the club, and it was something that they could not afford. The club have been around for a very long time—over 120 years—and are very proud. They are very worried about the future because if the ground is unplayable, it means their recruiting is extremely difficult.

Whilst Yea had a struggle for their season, some other local clubs did quite well. We had Bonnie Doon, for example, in the maiden grand final. They did not quite cut the mustard, but for the under-15s and under-17s netballers, the under-15s won and the under-17s went down in overtime. The B reserve were premiers and B grade just went down. We have had Powelltown win the division 2 grand final for the first time in 33 years over Kinglake, and that was a great game. They also had the B-grade netballers win. They had been undefeated all season. The D and C grades at Powelly made the grand final but did not quite pull through. Warburton Millgrove Football Netball Club won division 2 A-grade reserves, C grade, D grade and under-17s premierships. So it was a mixed bag. We had some great results. Some clubs did really well. I know the celebrations at Powelltown were going on because they did very well also in the best and fairest for the league and the goal kicking. They had a great season. So congratulations to Powelly and congratulations to Bonnie Doon and Warburton for their successes.