Cary, who coaches North Albury's under-16's, said her team trains alongside the club's higher grades, but an expansion would force them to break the mould.

"There is a bit of a push by the board to get another team into Ovens and Murray, another young team," Cary said.

"Most of the clubs at this stage aren't in favour of it, but we'll wait and see whether we get pushed into having another grade.

"They say it brings more people through the gate, but it's a lot more work.

"At North Albury, we don't have a different night of training for 16's, we all train on Tuesday night together in one group and that makes it a club.

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"When you've got some players training one night and others training another night, you don't get to know each other well enough.

"If you put a fifth team in there, it would be impossible, it just wouldn't work.

"We'd have to split our training sessions which, for the coaches, means being out another night of the week.

"We do have a session on Thursday night but it's not compulsory.

"A lot of the girls work, they play basketball, they play so many other sports and with young kids, you've got to look after their bodies.

"You can't push them to the brink and that's another reason why we've been fairly successful at North Albury, because they don't have to put in that second night."

Cary, who won four A-grade premierships with the Hoppers, expects the usual suspects to fight for the flag in 2020.

"I think Wangaratta and Corowa will still be up there," she said.

"But there's always so many changes at the start of the season to see who's playing where.

"That never used to happen. You'd turn up and you'd know you were playing against the same group of girls unless someone was having a baby.

"But there's a lot of poaching that goes on now, dragging players from other clubs, so it'll be interesting to see where they all go."