Warrnambool and District Cricket Association leaders have say on new top-eight finals format

Those are some of the reactions from leaders at Warrnambool and District Cricket Association clubs after the league changed its traditional division one top-four finals format to a top-eight for the 2022-23 season.

But not all clubs are against the move. The Standard canvassed leaders to get their thoughts on the decision which also sees the grand final moved back a weekend to Saturday, March 25.

Those against the top-eight say it "lacks merit" and "rewards mediocrity".

Under the change, the qualifying finals would be a knockout format with first to meet eighth and so on.

Russells Creek coach Cam Williams, whose side sits first at the Christmas break, labelled the decision "ridiculous" and said any top-eight should at least have a double chance for the top-four sides.

He threw out the suggestion of Saturday and Sunday matches to start the finals campaign where the top-four played each other with the winners advancing directly to the semi-finals and the losers playing the winners of the fifth-versus-eighth and sixth-versus-seventh elimination games.

Merrivale coach Justin Lynch said this could be an option too.

"It's quite laughable. The way the format is, I can see merit in it but if you're going to do it, do it properly and give the top sides a double chance so do it like an AFL finals series," he said.

Overall Williams was scathing of the decision.

"I don't understand why three quarters of the teams get to play in finals," he said.

"We're not playing for participation awards, we're playing for some fair dinkum division one cricket and if you're not good enough to make it that's when you need to rebuild and bring in players. It's ridiculous to think that if you finish eighth then in three weeks' time you could still win a premiership."

Williams would like to see the association revert to its original format.

"All clubs want to earn their spot in the finals, they don't want to be gifted finals," he said.

"If you're winning three games out of 12 and still scrape into eighth on the back of percentage or someone missing a captain's report, you don't deserve it really."

Many of Williams' counterparts echoed his thoughts with multiple pondering how the call benefited those teams which had worked diligently to establish themselves in the higher echelon of the ladder.

North Warrnambool Eels coach John Houston, whose team is currently outside the top-four, questioned "what their logic behind it is".

"You play all year to finish in the top-four and play finals and then now the rules have changed, that's probably where I'm struggling. We seem to be making the rules up as we go," he said.

"In this case, it would be selfish of me to say 'this is a great rule, we should be pushing for this because it gives us a chance to play finals'... but from a cricket perspective theoretically we should be playing everyone once and you've had an opportunity to finish in the top-four."

Mortlake captain Todd Lamont described all bar four sides making finals "as a bit of overkill" while Dennington president Mick Howley conceded it "wasn't rewarding good cricket".

West Warrnambool president Matt Holcombe said it was "over the top".

Allansford-Panmure president Steve Aberline was perplexed too.

"I don't think I've ever seen a competition have more than half the teams in the finals which is a bit strange to me," he said.

"It doesn't really promote teams to work hard in the first half of the season, they can easily top their sides up come mid-way through the year, finish eighth and roll through the finals."

Clubs were more open to a top-six where the top-two outfits would earn a double chance.

"I think top-six has some relevance given there's 12 teams but top-eight, you're just rewarding mediocrity really," Lamont said.

Nestles president Gary MacLean said a top-six would be "fair and reasonable".

"When we had that president meeting there was a bit of talk about divvy two having an eight in the two conferences but there wasn't much discussion about division one from my memory," he said.

"There was discussion about having a six (in division one) which is pretty fair, half your clubs playing finals."

Another area of concern for some leaders was a perceived lack of communication and decision-making in-season.

"From a consultation point of view it would have been nice to know their reasons behind it and it might make it clearer one way or the other. If it's not a logical reason, why change it?," Houston said.

While Brierly-Christ Church coach Lachi Rooke endorsed an expanded finals series, he felt the timing wasn't right mid-way through a season.

"For us personally it's a great opportunity to push for finals," he said. "But on the flip side, I don't know if introducing it mid-way through the season is the right way to go."

Rooke believes the introduction of more teams in the competition needed to be reflected in finals, though the change should have come at the start of the season.

"Especially such a big change, it's not a small change... it's completely changing the fabric," he said.

Aberline said the last-minute nature of the call impacted players, supporters and volunteers' plans too.

"They (the association) do a good job managing everything... but the communication has been poor," he said.

"The decision to change it has come over the last few days obviously and we're already halfway through the season and people have planned the end of their years and stuff like that.

"When there are a lot of other moving parts that they might not have considered, clearly we need more consultation."

Aberline said while washouts had impacted the season that was part-and-parcel of cricket.

"We haven't had a COVID-affected year this year but we've had more changes this year than we've ever had," he said.

"That's the disappointing part. We shouldn't be changing things based on weather, weather's been a factor in cricket since forever.

"It seems we're making too many snap decisions based on a few games of missed cricket."

Howley said he'd been "taken by surprise".

"I'm not a big fan of these changes on the run. We had a league meeting in November about changing games to one-dayers etc... at least clubs got some input on that," he said.

Holcombe held similar views.

"It strikes me as really strange. The whole thing to me is astounding," he said.

"All we received is an email in the middle of Christmas and New Year, which to me is a little odd without any real feedback from the clubs."

Wesley-CBC president Bryce Eagleson endorsed the radical change.

"Whilst it came as a surprise, we understand that with the season shaping up the way it has been, some out-of-the-box thinking is not necessarily a bad thing," he said.

"On the surface it might look silly but with the season shaping the way it was and the amount of washouts at the start of the year, it might give a club that might have just missed out on the top-six more opportunities to play cricket."

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