The VAFA Committee decided some months ago at its first meeting, like a large number of other VAFA clubs, that we would try and field a Thirds side in 2014. Based on many years of experience, the club believes we need at least 80 players to support 3 teams over the course of an entire season. This ensures we have adequate player numbers to cover for the inevitability of injuries and player unavailability. As an example, at times in the last two years we had over 15-20 players unavailable across 2 senior teams for multiple weeks at a time. To date we have had 60 to 65 players train on a regular basis throughout the pre-season campaign, which is a perfect number of players for 2 teams. This number of players is not nearly enough to consider fielding 3 senior teams. As a result of these player numbers, this week the VAFA Committee decided two teams was the most sensible team structure for the club for season 2014. In the first 2 or 3 rounds this may mean we will have some excess players who will need to be rotated thru the development side. As a result of likely injuries and unavailability we expect in the first month of games (eg we had 15 unavailable for last weeks round of senior practice matches across 2 teams), we believe all of these players will be “required”, leaving player numbers correctly balanced. In the end we believe we will have two very competitive senior teams, with all players regularly training, making competition for spots at a premium, which of course is important for the whole club to achieve its best.