Casey Chiefs boss laments

By Justin Robertson
CASEY Chiefs junior rugby league club is again on the hunt for a home.
After the Casey Council’s latest decision to nix the $1.4 million proposed rugby stadium at Casey Fields, club president Chris Howard said the club was again searching for a home ground and believed if they couldn’t find a ground equipped with a pavilion within the next 12-18 months the club would see a dramatic decline numbers and ultimately fold.
“The club is very disappointed, we’ve been waiting for this for 10 years, and once again it’s been put on the back burner because of an election,” he said.
“They are just about killing off one of the biggest rugby clubs in Victoria in doing so.”
Howard will meet with local councillors next week in what he deemed as crisis talks to discuss possible scenarios to keep the club and its 300 players together.
“We’ve heard back from the council and we’ve been given four dates for home games next year with use of the cricket pavilion, but apart from that, it’s been very silent,” Howard said.
“We just travel too far for kids to keep coming back to play for our club.
“They’re travelling out to places like Sunbury, Altona, and Craigieburn, just to play.”
This season the Chiefs have only played two home games, using the cricket pavilion, but had to give that up to the girl’s football team who previously used the racecourse as their facility.
“Basically we got shafted,” Howard said. “There are two cracking fields at Casey but we can’t use them because they don’t have any clubrooms.
“It’s just amazing that you go to the effort to make bloody good grounds – second best grounds behind the Melbourne Storm in my opinion – and not put a clubhouse there.”
The Chiefs have been training at Clyde Reserve and even installed their own lights a few years back so the teams could train, but Howard said if he had his choice he’d be training elsewhere.
“Clyde Reserve is ankle deep in mud, you wouldn’t even put sheep on it,” he said.
“We watched an $800,000 extension go in, on an existing club house with a club that has got nine teams – we’ve got 15 and we can’t get a clubhouse.”
With the upcoming council meeting, Howard said Casey Fields was still their ground of choice.
“We keep getting told we’ll be right, it’s starting to get beyond a joke,” he said.
“Other grounds aren’t really suited to our game, we play ours on a square field and you can’t just play it on a round field.
We really are holding out for Casey Fields, it’s the only thing we can do at the moment.”