ROSLYN LANIGAN speaks to the man in charge of Victoria's most geographically-challenged major league.
Chris Soumilas knows the Princes Highway like the back of his hand.As general manger of the Gippsland League – the most spread-out major league in country Victoria – Soumilas travels from his home office in Garfield to clubs as far-flung as Maffra, Sale and Wonthaggi.And he’s happy to admit the league’s vastness has its problems."When you say the Gippsland League, people talk about the distance from Wonthaggi to Maffra (170km)," Soumilas said."They don’t say from Drouin to Moe (40km), or from Moe to Traralgon (32km)."Most of our clubs do have the majority of our games within an hour’s drive, but from one end of the league to the other, travel is an issue."Aside from travel, Soumilas said the Gippsland League faced another challenge not encountered by most major leagues."We don’t have 100,000 people in one town that we’re based around, unlike like other major leagues," he said."Our total population would be under 100,000, probably more like 80,000."Trying to attract business partners is difficult because there’s not many businesses that go from one end to the other of our league."It’s no good me chasing a car dealership in Maffra or Sale unless they’re part of a chain that goes along the highway."But Soumilas said the challenge of attracting sponsors had lessened in recent seasons, as the profile of the league grew.He said the competition’s name change – from West Gippsland Latrobe to Gippsland – at the beginning of the season had helped shore-up its standing as the best league in the region."We’re not big yet, but it is starting to develop," Soumilas said."Five years ago, I would go out to see people and they’d say 'how long is this (league structure) going to last?'. "We’d had a few (structural) changes."Few, of course, is an understatement.Until 2002, Gippsland had two major leagues – West Gippsland and Gippsland-Latrobe Valley.Soumilas, then the stand-in general manager of the West Gippsland league, recalls the lead-up to the league merger better than most."The problem we had was that Gippsland-Latrobe was losing clubs, and in West Gippsland, the bottom half (of the ladder) was not coping playing against the top half," he said."We’d had about four reviews and investigations over a number of years and they’d usually come up with merging the top brackets of those two leagues together."That didn’t occur, and basically what happened was Pakenham and Beaconsfield went in the Melbourne direction and West Gippsland was left with nine clubs, then we had seven up there in Gippsland-Latrobe."In the space of a few seasons, Tooradin and ROC moved to the Casey Cardinia league , Nar Nar Goon and Koo-wee-rup headed to the Ellinbank and District league and Phillip Island and Kilcunda-Bass departed for the Alberton league "That left three teams with us (Drouin, Warragul and Garfield) and they were put into that mix with the Gippsland-Latrobe clubs," Soumilas said.This year, Garfield returned to district league footy in the Ellinbank league and Wonthaggi made a forced transition from the Alberton competition to major league football.With 35 years of football administration experience under his belt, Soumilas predicts there’s more changes to come in the Gippsland region."With population influx and the urban spread, it’s going to put different pressures on certain towns," he said."Some are going to explode, whereas other towns are just going to go very slowly. I see it changing constantly over the next 20 years."That said, I think we’ll consolidate our spot as the major league in Gippsland and it’ll stay like that for a long time because there isn’t really anywhere for our clubs to drop down to."Soumilas said the league had adopted a "wait-and-see" attitude to the possible development of a major league team in Bairnsdale, representing the East Gippsland region."At the present time we’ve got about 15 kids in our under-16 competition travelling from Bairnsdale on permits to play with our clubs, so there seems to be a desire there to play at the higher level," he said."But until we get a solid, concrete proposal, it’s very hard for us to look at anything."Soumilas said one of the advantages of a widespread league was that each cluster of clubs had a different district league to draw players from.Maffra and Sale sit alongside the North Gippsland league; Wonthaggi and Leongatha recruit from the Alberton league; Morwell, Moe and Traralgon comb the Mid Gippsland league; while Warragul and Drouin are neighbours to the Ellinbank and District league."We’re there to provide a game of footy and netball for people who want to play at a higher level," Soumilas said."But in each little region, if the clubs have good communication with district clubs, they then have their own little recruiting area."Soumilas said while the league still operated under a club-based executive, the wheels were in motion for a switch to an independent board."What we have now is people that are elected from clubs so they have an allegiance," he said."What we’re looking to do is have a group of people who can devote their time to the league."I think our clubs – the overwhelming majority of them – will vote in favour of it."Soumilas said the league was also in the process of developing a better unified umpiring system across the four umpires’ associations used by the league."The panels are telling us the umpires do want to umpire at the higher level so we want to develop that," he said."We’d like to have the Gippsland League leading the way on umpiring."
Bairnsdale will host their first home game back in the major competition against Moe
 will return to Gippsland's major Australian rules football league after members voted to join the Gippsland League (GL). The GL,  and the , regional Victoria's governing Aussie rules body, have all approved the move.


'''Round 1, 2011'''

''April 9''
Warragul vs. Bairnsdale
Wonthaggi vs. Morwell
Traralgon vs. Leongatha

''April 10''
Maffra vs. Sale
Drouin vs. Moe


Bairnsdale will field teams in the seniors, under 18 and under 16 grades, but not a reserves side like the rest of the competition. Players not selected in the senior side will be able to play for a club in the East Gippsland minor league, under a unique transfer agreement. 

They will play their first game back in the major league in Warragul on April 9 before playing their first home game against Moe a week later.

Their furthest away game will be to Wonthaggi – a one way trip of approximately 224 kilometres.