News

By administrator October 23, 2007
From The ABC Ballarat website

Reported by Josh McDermott
Full article Click here

The North Ballarat Roosters off-season recruiting is still up in the air due to the uncertainty of a continued alignment with the Kangaroos next year.

The Roosters were hoping to be able to announce a new partnership at the best and fairest awards dinner, but that was more than two weeks ago and an agreement is still no further advanced.

For the past two seasons the Roosters have had a partial alignment with the Kangaroos, giving them access to half the Roos list but the contract expired at the end of the 2007 season. And although the Roosters want to continue the partial alignment the other half of the Roos reserves players no longer have a home. For the past two years they had been playing with Tasmania as part of a joint alignment, but now that the Devils have decided to go alone this is no longer an option.

The Kangaroos are currently in the process of looking for another VFL club to share a partial alignment or alternatively commence a full alignment. The most likely of the stand-alone VFL clubs to participant in an alignment is Werribee who have recently ceased involvement with the Western Bulldogs, although Port Melbourne and Frankston are believed to be other possibilities.

North Ballarat are still hopeful of continuing the partial alignment but will not consider a full alliance because it will mean that many local footballers wont get the opportunity to play at VFL level.

“Our board will not entertain a full alignment with North Melbourne” says Roosters coach Gerard Fitzgerald.

The Kangaroos alignment has not only been a huge asset on the field, with this seasons Roosters best and fairest winner Ed Lower and third place getter Djaran Whyman both Roos listed players, but it has also had many positives off field.

“The North Melbourne alignment has given our staff many professional development opportunities. Our assistant coach was given the chance to work with Roos assistant Darren Crocker, our strength and conditioning coach got to spend time shadowing the North Melbourne equivalent and our statisticians got to record the Kangaroos stats for a game, so the alliance has assisted the club in many ways since the relationship began” says coach Gerard Fitzgerald.

If the alignment is no longer these opportunities may not be available, and more importantly for the success of the club, they will need to recruit heavily to be able to remain competitive as a stand-alone team next year.

“History shows that if we had to become a stand-alone club next year we would be looking at the bottom half of the ladder,” Fitzgerald says. “I suppose the question is can we do better than history would suggest.”

The Roosters are currently working on building a list of around 50 players in case the alignment no longer exists next season.