In the wake of a rapid decline in senior women’s teams for the 2018 AWFA competition, Mirt admits it’s time for the association to change to its approach across all age groups.

“For me, representative football is a thing of the past,” Mirt said.

“I believe that the pathway now is through the NPL system and the longer people don’t accept that, the more it’s going to damage the sport long-term.

“We need to accept the NPL is the new pathway and we need to structure our age groups to support that.

“Murray United are working in one direction and we’re working in another, so I think we all need to sit around a big table and discuss the future of football.

“The majority of Murray United’s players came out of our competition and we didn’t restructure our comp to fit that.

“We’ve still had the same amount of age groups, the same amount of teams and we’re catering for too much in our competition.

“Some people need to take the blinkers off and see what’s better for the sport in this area, because there’s massive potential.”

Myrtleford was one of three clubs to drop back from senior women’s to reserves this season, but Mirt believes a combination of aspects have played a part in the quality of the players.

“Our senior ladies competition has been so strong for so long and a reason for that is many years ago the girls participated with the boys in their age groups,” he said.

“When I was a junior, we had four girls in our age group.

“It’s a little bit more competitive and they want to try beat the boys, which is great.

“Girls are now wanting to play just with girls and I think that’s where the standard has dropped off.

“Our Miniroos program across the whole association in working really well, but I think it’s going to take a while for that to bleed back into the system.

“There’s no hiding the fact that AFL Women’s have played a part in some of the girls going that way, which is fine, everyone is entitled to play the sports they want to.”

Mirt said the club recognised it needed to build its ladies sides from the junior ranks.

“We’ve got and under 13s going and we tried to get an under 11s, I think it’s important to build from the bottom up,” he said.

After a top-three league finish in 2016, Cobram has had an exodus of ladies.

Roar president Michael Startari admitted it has become increasingly difficult to get players to stick around.

“Last year we lost five girls to footy in Shepp,” he said.