Lack of juniors hurting player stocks as injury and unavailability hit for Magpies

A week after going goalless against Billabong Crows, the Magpies failed to put a score on the board against Brocklesby-Burrumbuttock Saints at home on Saturday, going down 29.20 (194) to 0.0 (0).

Long-time Hume League official Barry Malone said it was the only scoreless performance that he could recall going back to the 1970s.

Magpies coach Brett Argus said the club lost 15 players over the off-season, and had taken a while to get the numbers and team together but enjoyed a brief surplus of players before injuries hit. The side was without 12 first-choice players last week and nine this week, he said.

Hume League president Phil Bouffler said the Magpies had cleared a handful of players to join in recent weeks but its inability to field under-17 and under-14 sides the past two years had hurt its player stocks.

However, the resumption of Auskick there was a positive.

"It's difficult not having juniors," Bouffler said.

"They're strong in the netball, they're just struggling in the juniors. That's the problem.

"It's systematic across regional Australia, we just seem to be in trouble with junior numbers, we're probably bleeding kids to soccer and some of these other sports.

ALSO IN SPORT:

"We need to be more proactive in encouraging kids to play football. Whether boys or girls. Because girls can play in mixed grade competition in under-14.

"There's certainly no panic about it all, we're monitoring what they are up to and hopefully they can just continue on and get some juniors.

"And if you live near North Albury or Lavington, and you can't get a game of footy, go and see [club president] Ted Miller or someone at the club and register some interest."

Bouffler said he was confident the club could rebound

"I've seen them play a couple of times, they certainly are not lacking in endeavour," Bouffler said.

"The league's certainly supporting them, and we just hope they can get some more players.

"Lockhart last year didn't win a game. This year they've won two games and are going quite well. So it's just a cyclic thing hopefully."

Argus said the club was stretched but that it was confident it would bounce back in the second half of the season.

"After such a big turnover of players, depth gets hurt and when you have so many injuries and unavailability it really starts stretching things," he said.

"We're confident and we're hoping second time around we're going to be a lot better for the run.

"A result like that is disappointing, especially immediately after last week, but we'll deal with that at training.

"From a club perspective, everything's fine, we've got plenty of people at functions, the netballers are going great - it's a great place to be."

To read more stories, download The Border Mail news app in the Apple Store or Google Play.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: