By Tara Murray
UPDATE:
Jacana’s matches against Northern Saints won’t go ahead tomorrow after the club was unable to get the numbers to field two senior teams.
The Essendon District Football League division 2 club earlier this week called off their reserves match with the Saints, after the departures of several players during the week.
Jaguars president David Currie said on Friday he was confident that the club would still be able to field a senior team.
But late on Friday afternoon, the Saints on their Facebook page stated the league had notified them that the Jaguars wouldn’t be able to field either side, meaning the games wouldn’t go ahead.
The league has since confirmed that.
The forfeit comes after Currie vowed that the club’s future wasn’t in doubt despite stopping player payments.
Money issues have seen the club decide to stop player payments for the foreseeable future.
Several players have left the club in the past week, including star forward Cameron Cloke.
Jaguars president David Currie admitted the club was facing difficulties, but said it was focused on working through them.
He said the club was unable to produce the sort of income that some of the bigger clubs in the league could, which made it harder for them to run a club.
“Some people are under the assumption the club is folding, but the club isn’t shutting its doors,” he said.
“It’s getting harder for lower-division clubs to generate money.
“The club has been in tougher times than this before. We’re working through this and hopefully at the end of the tunnel, we come out on top.”
Currie said the focus was to ensure the club fielded sides each week and back running in a healthy fashion.
Currie said it wasn’t an easy decision to stop paying players, but the club didn’t want to find itself in a big debt down the track and wanted to get things under control.
He said some other clubs were happy to have large debts, but it was something they tried to avoid.
He said the decision to stop playing players had meant the club had parted ways with Cloke.
A clearance for Cloke to join Hume Football League side Henty has been submitted.
Six other players have put in clearances.
Currie said some of those players were unhappy, while others had moved for financial reasons.
“It was a club decision to part ways with Cam, which is unfortunate as he’s been loyal to the club and is a premiership player,” Currie said.
While several players are on the move, Currie said there were a number of loyal players who would continue to play for the club.
“About a dozen who still want to play, who were on decent money – they want to play for the jumper and some have been there 20 to 25 years,” he said.
“Hopefully we’ll reward them down the track.”
The club will hold a meeting with players and supporters tonight (Friday).
The reserves side has already forfeited this week, due to a lack of numbers..
Currie said he was confident the club would have a senior side to run out tomorrow (Saturday).
Currie said called on the local community to get behind the club.
“Come down and support the club still – don’t walk away from it,” he said.
“There’s people happy to run the club. Come and spend money and support the club.
“It’s the last club from the Broadmeadows area out of nine clubs..
“We won’t let the club go down hill.”
