Lockhart officials pour cold water on any possible merger

The Demons are staring at the grim prospect of going into recess after a mass exodus of players over the off-season.

A meeting on Monday night revealed the club desperately needs another 20 players in the coming weeks or face the alternative of 12 months on the sidelines.

The club has set the deadline of March 7 to attract enough players to forge ahead this season.

Wooden all but ruled out a merger as a solution to the club's woes.

"Merger talks have been floated at committee level," Wooden said.

"But really there aren't too many viable alternatives in close proximity to Lockhart.

"Apart from the seniors, our numbers throughout the rest of the club are really solid.

"Our netball has got strong numbers, juniors have got strong numbers.

"If we merged with another club then you would have netballers and juniors missing out on a game which is obviously not ideal.

"So we feel as a club that a merger is not the solution."

ALSO IN SPORT

Wooden also said switching competitions and joining the neighbouring Farrer league wasn't appealing.

"As a club, we love the Hume league," he said.

"The seniors and juniors all play on the same day and it is a really family orientated competition.

"So we don't really want to join another competition.

"If push came to shove and we got desperate and the only thing we could do was to get players from Wagga, then we might have to.

"But that would be the absolute last resort because the Hume league is such a great competition."

Despite the perilous situation of the short-term future of the club, Wooden revealed planning for the 2023 season looked a lot brighter.

"The big thing about it is there are some promising signs for 2023," he said.

"Recruiting-wise we are ahead of the curve and have a coach that is willing to commit.

"We just need to get out of this hole that we are in at the moment.

"Then the grass will be greener on the other side."

The club is also strong financially and is in the process of completing the building of new clubrooms which commenced last year.

"The new clubrooms are more than half-way through being built," Wooden said..

"That involved countless hours by volunteers who did all the paperwork just to be eligible for the grants.

"It would be such a shame if all that hard work went to waste and we had a new facility and no club to use it.

"So we just need players to commit over the next month otherwise there are going to be a lot of question marks over the future of the club."

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