BEHIND THE SCENES: We followed the Ovens and Murray during interleague week

Albury's team manager is now in his 30^th year of carrying out the same duties for the Ovens and Murray footballers and has enough stories from their bus trips around Victoria to bring out an autobiography.

Ried may be as passionate about the Tigers as anyone but when it comes to this time of year, he's got the league hat firmly on his head.

"I enjoy the camaraderie with some of the guys from other clubs because you just don't get to interact with them during the home-and-away season," Ried said.

"I've got some really good fellas now that I still remember from when I started interleague; Robbie Walker and the Wilson boys from Wang Rovers.

"We played the Rovers last weekend, I walked in and they came straight up and shook my hand.

"Plus, I like to see the elite guys, the way they train and prepare.

"My pre-game preparation, I like to be organised and I think they appreciate that too.

"Some of the other O and M guys are not involved in club footy, so they don't really know how it works but I'm a stickler for being on time.

"I run a stopwatch at half-time, I know what information the coaches need - and even the elite blokes sometimes need a bit of a rub on the head as well.

"They might be the best players in the league but sometimes they just need a little bit of support.

"They're also looking to go to the next level and they don't want to play Ovens and Murray if it's just going to be ad-hoc."

Come on, Riedy, give us one of your stories...

"We went to Warrnambool one year, it was an all-night bus trip and we got back to Albury about 3am," he smiled.

"We went around the corner at the post office, the bus driver cut the corner and ripped the whole back window out of the bus.

"He'd just driven eight hours and he'd wrecked the bus!

"I was crook the year the boys got kicked off the bus at Benalla because one of the players jumped in the seat and tried to drive the bus!

"We went to Mildura and on the way down, every time they stopped for a leak, one of the players would go into the pub.

"We thought 'that's a bit strange, he's gone to the toilet, righto' and he came back out.

"Anyway, on the way home, we seemed to stop at the very same place and what he'd done is organised the publican and paid for a slab of beer so five stops home, they were wondering how we'd got all this beer on the bus because he had it hidden out the back of the pub at 2 o'clock in the morning and they were still drinking!"

Ried and the rest of the backroom staff are waiting for senior training to start so I wander to the far side of Birallee Park, where the O and M's 17-and-under netballers are playing a training match against their senior counterparts.

It's fast and furious, with the teenagers giving a good account of themselves under the lights.

"We're really lucky as coaches to get these young kids come on board," coach Jodie House said.

"The beauty with the 17s is we've been playing tournaments so we get an opportunity to bring them together and get them to gel as a unit.

"Then, when they come out on the court tonight and play against open, that really gives them an opportunity to have a look at areas they need to work on and what it takes to be at that next level."

House is here several times a week, coaching senior and junior netballers at Wodonga Raiders, so why add interleague and rep netball to her list of commitments?

"I like the kids who are motivated to be the best they can and when you get an opportunity to bring them all together as a unit, my challenge is how do you take the best players and make them the best team?" House said.

"We had a list of 14 players from which we drew players for tournaments.

"We've selected 10 this weekend for interleague and then we'll have some different availability for the Association Championships the following weekend.

"When you play tournament netball, you're there all day, so we get an opportunity to throw lots of different combinations on the court and have a look at what works.

"GV is always really competitive and there's a nice rivalry between the two leagues.

"But a lot of these kids will actually be friends with the GV girls because they're involved with academies together.

"There's always an inside rivalry, wanting to beat GV and come out victorious."

The same strength of feeling definitely exists at open level, where the O and M are chasing their first interleague win since 2017.

"We were lucky enough to have a lot of success during my time," assistant coach Sarah Moore reflected.

"I was in the 2008 team which won the interleague game at Deakin Reserve in Shepparton and also went on to win the State Association Championships.

"That was the last year we won it and we've been striving for that ever since.

"A lot of it has to do with the culture you build within the interleague format and that's what Rhi (Harris, coach) and I are trying to get going amongst this group of girls. Hopefully we rub off on them a little bit and bring a bit of that culture back, the honour and striving to play for that interleague position.

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"Not everyone gets to do it, so these girls need to realise how much of a role model they are for younger players in the league."

The Ovens and Murray have been runners-up four times since Moore (nee Senini) and her team-mates triumphed at the Association Championships, so what have the class of 2023 done in an attempt to go one step further?

"A lot of it is around trainings," Moore said.

"We need a strong team to go through to Melbourne and for this weekend, so as a unit we've decided on a group of girls we think will gel well together and complement one another's game styles - and also a group of girls that get along really well.

"The expectations have probably been lost a little bit over the years.

"I was playing with players in the league at the time like Steph Tyrell, Breda O'Kane and Sarah Wallington, also Ellie O'Kane, who's now Ellie Pashley.

"Those players were phenomenal and I think the transition between them and this group, there's been an exit at some stage and we haven't had those older players playing with the interleague group.

"But this year we've got Hannah Symes and Hannah Grady both in the side and they bring a wealth of experience, which is essential."

Interleague football in Melbourne is something the Ovens and Murray are looking into but for now, Saturday's game at Albury Sportsground is it, so under-18 coach Tom McGrath has just conducted his final training run.

"Last year, when I was appointed, they said 'you can get your own people in but we'd prefer if you got people from different clubs' so that's what I've done," McGrath said.

"Danny Stevens is the midfield coach, he's got a background with Albury, Paul Twycross is the backline coach, he's involved with Wodonga Raiders, Andrew Robertson is the forwards coach and he's involved with Lavington."

Simon Plunkett, who'll be running the bench, and team manager Vince Jones are also representing the Panthers while McGrath coached Albury's thirds until last season.

"It's a good step up in standard and it's good getting to know the kids from other clubs," McGrath said.

"They have a dislike for each other when they play with their clubs but one thing we stressed last year was 'you'll make lifelong friends and you'll play against each other for years to come but you'll always go and have a beer after because you've become mates with them through interleague.'

"It brings them all together, they all get along really well and they realise 'jeez, he's not such a bad bloke after all.'

"We had 11 bottom-age kids last year so they're now top-age and they're stepping up, so they know what to expect and how things run.

"They've become our leaders this year.

"There's some really good talent; we've got kids playing senior footy at different clubs, kids who are on the Bushies list and haven't got a game yet, so they're eligible to play, so it's just about bringing them all together."

It's selection time in the Raiders clubrooms, where the sound of knives and forks chinking against plates suddenly dies down as Bob Craig is invited to address the players.

Craig, an Ovens and Murray Hall of Famer, coached the interleague side to a three-peat of Victorian Country Division 1 championships from 1997-99 and went on to lead the VCFL side in 2001-02.

Wearing a black and yellow bench jacket, Craig swaps places with incumbent Damian Sexton.

"Thanks for giving me the opportunity to bring this out of the cupboard," he said.

"It's been in there for 25 years and today's the first chance I've had to wear it.

"The Ovens and Murray Football League is considered to be the premier league in country Victoria and that's a right they've earned with their performances over the years.

"But like all leagues, things are good for a while, you win a few and then it drops off because you're not as hungry.

"Peter Tossol took over the Ovens and Murray after the GV beat them by 80 points at Benalla on a Monday night and then we won four flags in a row.

"That was a super performance by this league but it took commitment.

"Every player and every support staff member had to be committed and every club had to really get behind it.

"So bring home their scalps, boys, and let them lay where they are!"

The preparations pay off, with the O and M winning three of Saturday's four games and producing a gutsy fightback in the open netball before going down 39-36 to a powerful GV outfit.

To the winners, the spoils, and to the administrators, food for thought as the debate around interleague's future continues to rumble on.

"There is certainly an element of players who are searching for a weekend off when interleague comes around," O and M general manager Kane Arendarcikas admitted.

"But as a league, we try our hardest to run a professional program and we try to look after the players as best we can, as they would be in their club colours.

"You hope the uptake is solid and that we can put a good team out there.

"We rely very heavily on guys like Ross Ried, who has volunteered as team manager for 30 years.

"Yes, we do have two full-time staff but it would be impossible to do this on our own.

"This has been months in the planning and no-one's getting paid to be here, neither the coaches nor the players.

"We champion the volunteering at club level but this seriously wouldn't happen if we didn't have those volunteers prepared to stick their hand up and be involved.

"We're lucky that we've got such high-quality coaches and high-quality people in the system who enjoy interleague, who are really proud of it and who want to see it prosper."

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