Last year the question was, can a new face win the comp?
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
This year, it's will we see ANY faces?
Coronavirus has thrown the world into a spin with the Ovens and Murray Football Netball League postponed until May 31.
Who knows where life will be then?
MORE CORONAVIRUS NEWS:
If we do get a start in football around the region, it mightn't be the best team winning a compromised flag, it could be the one which can fine-tune the disrupted preparation.
Let's be honest, nobody has ever been in this position, so there's no coaching textbook with the answer.
Do coaches stop the players training now and reconvene in mid-April? Do some just keep charging through, working on the theory the players will never be more physically prepared if the season does start in June?
Everyone agrees the O and M was headed for its closest season in many years with seven realistic contenders for the top five.
MORE FOOTY FORM
In the Hume League, there's probably nine teams with a realistic claim on the top six.
Tallangatta looks similar to last year but, again, (and wouldn't you love a dollar for every time we've heard this in the past month), we're entering unchartered territory.
If a coach can unravel the current mystery, he could walk away with a flag.
The late English novelist Rudyard Kipling, who wrote The Jungle Book, once spoke about keeping your head, while others around are losing theirs.
A sound mind and the ability to see 'above the canopy' might be just as important as a 60m goal.
You'd have to think a coach with experience will have an advantage, so that could count against the O and M's only first-year coach in Mark Whiley at Yarrawonga, for example, but he's such a fitness fanatic maybe that will prove an inspiration to his team-mates.
However, if footy re-starts, we'll all be like kids in a lolly shop for the frenetic shortened season.
