CHFL: 18-team competition is official

IT'S official. Central Highlands Football League will be an 18-club competition in 2011.League delegates last night voted in favour of four former Lexton Plains identities Carngham-Linton, Illabarook, Rokewood-Corindhap and Skipton being admitted to the CHFL for next season.This formalises the region's football/netball shake-up, with Navarre, Natte-Bealiba and Lexton last week permitted entry into the Maryborough Castlemaine District ranks. MCDFL delegates voted unanimously to accept the clubs, as well as a move to a top-eight finals system.This brings the MCDFL to 14 teams.The remaining Lexton Plains club, Ararat Eagles, won its appeal to join the Mininera and District after originally being rejected by the league's member teams.All Lexton Plains clubs were forced to find new homes after the league disbanded at the end of the 2010 season.CHFL spokesman Gerard Ryan said delegates voted on Carngham-Linton, Illabarook, Rokewood-Corindhap and Skipton as a package last night, which was ''carried by a majority''.He said it was now a matter of pressing forward with preparations for a new-look 2011 season."It's the best thing for football based upon where it was at. There was no league for those four clubs, so this is the best option for them,'' Ryan said. ''They (delegates) were pretty positive once the decision had been made. The approach was 'let's move forward now'.'' Ryan said it had been decided that all 18 clubs would be placed together in one competition, not a two-tier format which had been suggested in the Victorian Country Football League's preliminary recommendations report, released in July. This will see a two-year rotating fixture, operating on a 17-round season.Ryan said delegates would vote at next month's meeting on whether the league would stick with the top-six finals system currently in use or move to a final-eight.''Delegates were given some models of how (a final-eight system) could work, with the biggest alteration being four matches on the first weekend of finals compared to two,'' he said.''That's the biggest thing clubs are going to have to grapple with and make a decision around.''With its fate now known, Rokewood-Corindhap is one team looking forward to life in the Central Highlands.Incoming secretary Shane Anwyl said the Grasshoppers were pleased that formalities had been completed.