Longmire, who is on the board at Corowa-Rutherglen, says the league should consider adopting the AFL-VFL model, where clubs would form partnerships with district teams.

“I believe the days of the Ovens and Murray seconds, as were are seeing it now, are finished,” he said.

“If you look at the last two seconds grand finals, Lavington beat Wodonga by 13 goals and the year before that Albury won by 26 goals or something like that.

“No one watches it.”

Corowa-Rutherglen’s reserves, along with Myrtleford, haven’t kicked a goal in the past two weeks while suffering 150-point-plus defeats.

Longmire said, for example, if Corowa-Rutherglen was to align with the Rutherglen Cats, the clubs’ best 21 could represent the Roos in the Ovens and Murray with the next 21 to line up in the Tallangatta League.

“If you look at the AFL, and the greatest model down there is Hawthorn, their home base is Glenferrie, they train at Waverley, they play games at Tasmania and their seconds play at Box Hill,” he said.

“I think it’s something that could work really, really well.

“I mention it everywhere I go because the discussion has got to happen, just like it did with the player points system.

“I’m willing to stick my neck on the line for this and if I’m wrong, that’s OK. Let’s bring it into the communities as a discussion point.”

Under Longmire’s plan, third-grade matches would start at midday before the senior game kicked off.

He would like to see under-12s, 14s and 16s played on the same day as thirds and seniors but acknowledged there was some work to go with the Albury-Wodonga and Wangaratta junior competitions before that could happen.

Ovens and Murray general manager Aaron McGlynn said the league was “100 per cent committed to fielding a reserves competition”.

He hoped the player points system and salary cap, which is due to come into effect in 2017, would have a positive effect on the reserves competition