It’s official – Port Stephens Power is joining the Black Diamond Women’s AFL for 2018.
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The club, based in Medowie, will be part of an expanded competition for the upcoming season, which will see new inclusions from Terrigal Avoca, The Entrance Bateau Bay and Wallsend-West Newcastle.
The Medowie club will play in the women’s AFL competition alongside previous Black Diamond premiership winners Nelson Bay.
“Port Stephens [Power] is located right between [Newcastle] City and Nelson Bay, so we feel like the cross-over is going to positively effect the junior recruitment for the club,” BDAFL president Wal Bembic said.
“We are hoping that we can spread a lot of talent around. Part of our strategy going forward was giving any area that has AFL a club to build the region up. There’s a lot of potential in Port Stephens and they have a fantastic junior club.
“Black Diamond AFL is hoping that the new enterprise in Port Stephens can go from strength-to-strength in the upcoming years.”
Black Diamond powerhouse and 2017 premiers Newcastle City has also been granted permission to again enter two teams into the competition under the central club banner, with an internal draft to spread talent between the ‘Navy’ and ‘White’ teams for 2018.
Bembic was pleased that the discussions could be confirmed for the next season, and is looking forward to “moving onwards and upwards with the leagues”.
“It’s a big relief to have everything settled, and it’s good to see so many teams set for the next season,” Bembic said. “It’s great for the clubs in general, and we’re really concentrating on keeping clubs healthy and keeping the footy competitive.
“These moves are crucial to make sure that clubs can retain their juniors and remain strong in terms of numbers, which is part of the reason we have such a big women’s competition going forward.”
Investigations into other regional leagues showed that two-tiered systems saw rising juniors happy to travel to the top grade more readily, to “play what they saw as better footy”, Bembic revealed.
“We didn’t want clubs to be developing talents just to lose them to the club down the road, so we have made sure that we could keep just one league for the women’s grade,” he said. “Nearly every club has a first grade side so women can stay at the club. We want to make sure that developing clubs benefit from that focus.
“Black Diamond AFL also wanted to cover a lot of different areas in Newcastle and the greater Hunter region so that there would always be a local club for people to play at. The focus now is on making sure that there’s a strong pathways to the top tiers.”
The expansion of the league isn’t the only change on the cards for footy in the Hunter.
There will also be a new seven-man board made up of AFL NSW/ACT representatives and members would be elected to govern football in the region.
The competition will commence on April 7, 2018 with all grand finals to be held on September 1, 2018. The home and away season will run for 18 weeks with all teams playing 16 matches and having two byes.
Finals will consist of a top seven elimination series that will be run over three weeks.
Team list for the Black Diamond Women’s AFL in 2018
- Cardiff
- Gosford
- Lake Macquarie
- Killarney Vale
- Maitland
- Muswellbrook
- Nelson Bay
- Newcastle City – Navy
- Newcastle City – White
- Port Stephens (Medowie)
- Singleton
- Terrigal Avoca
- The Entrance Bateau Bay
- Wallsend-West Newcastle
- Warners Bay
- Wyong Lakes