Tolland president Luke Wilson believes Football Wagga has shown disrespect to both the Leonard Cup finals and the inaugural under 12-14 girls grand final.
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Tolland's junior girls were crowned premiers at Gissing Oval last week rather than playing in Football Wagga's grand final extravaganza this weekend.
And the Wolves' Leonard Cup team was denied a grand final berth by a bizarre finals schedule which saw the top two teams meet in a sudden death semi-final.
Tolland lost 3-1 to Hanwood last Sunday. The team they'd beaten 9-0 in their first final, Cootamundra, progressed to the grand final from the other semi.
"Obviously they just didn't want to see the two top teams in the grand final again. That's what it was. It's disgusting," Wilson said.
"It was an extremely poor decision on Football Wagga's behalf. We were gutted. (The team) knew they were going to have to beat Hanwood sooner or later. It's not us being bitter that we lost on the weekend at all. It ruins the grand final.
"We could've done the wrong thing the other week, and thrown the game against Coota, and let them win. But that's not in the spirit of the game."
Football Wagga said it was an unforeseen issue in the shortened season and that it will be looked at for next year. But they wouldn't consider a change mid-finals.
Tolland insist a simple switch would've maintained the integrity of the finals by having Cootamundra (as a first week loser) playing minor premiers Hanwood, and Tolland (as a first week winner) playing lower ranked Junee.
"That's what it should've been last weekend and that would've been fairest. It would've given everyone an opportunity," Wilson said.
"We're bitterly disappointed that they wouldn't change it. I spoke to them numerous times about it but they just refused. They know they've done the wrong thing but they don't care."
Football Wagga president Tony Dobbin said they understand the disappointment.
"We appreciate what Luke is saying. We treat this as a lesson learnt for the future and part of the lesson is, with a shortened season, one of our desires was to give teams as many games as possible, and that meant five-team finals (in three weeks)," Dobbin said.
"By going down that path, we created what we thought was the right thing at the time. Hindsight's a wonderful thing."
Ironically, a similar scenario occurred in the junior girls competition when its finals series was cut short by a week, and the qualifying final between first and second (Wagga United and Lake Albert) suddenly became an elimination final. The victor would go to the grand final and play the winner of Tolland (third) and Henwood Park (fourth).
"Football Wagga decided to go from a three-week finals to a two-week finals simply because they couldn't fit the girls in on grand final day (this weekend)," Wilson said.
"It was extremely disappointing... and you can't have one and two going for an elimination, that's pathetic."
That situation was rectified on the day of the finals, with first switched to play fourth and second playing third. It's what Tolland wanted to see happen in the senior girls.
Their juniors, as it turned out, won through to the grand final and then claimed the title.
But it wasn't on this weekend's big stage at Equex.
"They basically short-changed the girls which I was really disappointed with," Wilson said.
Football Wagga said it was simply unable to fit all grades in this weekend, particularly with COVID-19 protocols.
"Certainly we've got a lot of respect for the four clubs that managed to get the under 14 girls teams this year... we're very grateful for that," Dobbin said.
"We hope to be able to build on that next year so it's a bit of a developing area for us but hats off to those clubs and (the competition) has worked very well. But unfortunately in the pandemic we couldn't fit that game in here."
Already, the grand finals are starting on Friday night, running from 8.30am to nearly 10pm on Saturday and again from morning til night on Sunday.
"The big thing that's changed this year is COVID and we have to add an extra half an hour in between games, so the gap is longer," Dobbin said.
"Obviously with finals we already have to allow for extra-time and then penalty shootouts. The timetable just became extraordinarily long. We're starting the Blake Trophy at 7.45pm on Saturday night. Last weekend we put in 14-hour days."
Football Wagga now have an eye on the skies with a deluge predicted for the weekend.
"One great storm went past us this morning... but it is what it is. We can't defer it. We just see what happens," Dobbin said.
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