Bungaree has been scrapped as next month’s host venue for the 2018 AFL Victoria Community Championships clash between the Central Highlands and Riddell District competitions.
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The fixture – which includes two football and two netball games – will now be played at Buninyong.
Central Highlands Football League administrator Diane Ryan said the board of management had requested the shift following Saturday’s round of matches.
The Bungaree ground suffered badly at the hands of the wet weather and the decision was made to explore the option of moving the May 19 interleague battles to the league’s newly-revamped oval at Buninyong.
Ryan said the transfer from Bungaree was purely based on the condition of the playing surface.
“It became obvious after Saturday that no matter what the amount of wet weather between now and then (May 19), that surface at Buninyong will hold up,” Ryan said.
“It held up really, really well (on Saturday).”
Ryan said the Riddell District competition was happy with the move, which has been approved by the City of Ballarat.
Pitchcraft Australia completed the works at Buninyong, which included new drainage and irrigation systems, surface profile re-shaping, new sand cap installation and couch turf installation and establishment. The job cost $500,000, with the ground unveiled during Saturday’s games between Buninyong and Ballan.
Buninyong last hosted a Central Highlands senior interleague fixture in 2013 when the Ovens and King competition came to town. The Highlanders won that encounter by 109 points.
Clive Raak has accepted the role as head coach for a third season in charge of the Central Highlands senior football side.
Raak has suffered four-point defeats in his past two games against the Geelong and District and Southern leagues.
He will be assisted in the role by league coaches Matt Beaston (Carngham-Linton), Jarrod Morgan (Buninyong) and Johno Leoncini (Clunes), as well as former Waubra leader Grant Luscombe.
Raak said Leoncini would be in charge of the defence, Morgan the midfield and Luscombe the forward division of the side.
Beaston has been given the job of focusing on the opposition, an area which Raak believed proved costly in the loss to Southern.
Raak said the information he received on opposition players last year wasn’t great and felt it took the coaching panel until the second quarter to identify the Southern league’s strengths and weaknesses.
“That was probably one area where we need to improve on,” Raak told The Courier.
Raak said the coaching group had met to discuss the upcoming campaign and formed a list of about 85 players that were in contention for the final side to take on a Riddell District outfit that beat West Gippsland last season.
He said the pool of players available for the Highlanders was better this year than in 2017.
Raak has scheduled the Central Highlands’ first training run for May 2.
Also on Saturday, May 19, the Ballarat league will meet Goulburn Valley at the MCG.
That AFL Victoria Community Championships fixture is a curtain-raiser to the AFL clash between Geelong and Essendon.