A subcommittee will be formed in the coming days to help Lara review how the club found itself in recess and to plan its return to open-age football.
President Chris Spence says the group will feature members of the club’s football and netball sections and be overseen by the Lara Sporting Club (LSC).
“What we’re initially doing is putting in place a subcommittee that will be led by the LSC with the executive membership of the football and netball sections,” Spence said.
“Their first job will be to set a process in place to look at the conditions that we experienced in the lead up to this, and review the history of it.
“But, more importantly, look at how we can establish the club into the future in a sustainable and competitive way.
“And so that’s going to be a significant body of work that occurs across this year, and that’s going to commence in the coming days.”
Spence said there were some concerns pre-Christmas, but remained optimistic it would attract enough quality players.
However, with several potential recruits falling over and the departure of several first-choice players, concerns about Lara’s competitiveness became more apparent.
“We knew we had some challenges a couple of months ago,” he said.
“But, we believed that we could work our way through that, particularly if we were able to land some good recruits who would add a degree of capability and skill
“But we weren’t able to do that, and as a result, we lost several players in a bit of a stream over several weeks.
“Prior to that happening, you know, our initial re-signing was very, very positive.
“It was only after we probably didn’t get some of the recruits we hoped for that we started to see some changes in players’ attitudes towards our competitiveness for this year.”
Newly-appointed netball president Shana Miatke welcomed AFL Barwon’s exemption that will allow Lara to enter teams in Saturday netball, with the Cats looking to build on some positive results in the past 12 months.
“We finished the season last year with A-grade only missing out on finals by a game and a half,” she said.
“We’ve seen some really promising results in our junior netball over the summer comp and are looking forward to what type of success that we can have for the club.
“We’re really going to be calling on the Lara community and the followers – past and current – to get around both the junior football, the women’s football and the netball.
“To support the club and help us in the way that we regroup and look at the foundations and how we can try and work and get the men’s footy back up and going.”
Senior football coach Brett Henderson labelled the situation “really sad” for a town that at the 2021 census had 19,000 residents.
Despite a tough initation to the role in 2025, Henderson was confident of improvement this year.
“To be honest, the end of September, early October, I thought we were in a great position,” he said.
“And then, unfortunately, we just lost a couple of players, and then that just compounded things, because the guys wanted to be competitive next year and they sort of saw the writing on the wall when those players left.
“It became more and more difficult as time’s gone by, because we just haven’t got the numbers.”
2026 would have been the second year of a three-year deal for Henderson, and despite having no team to coach, he’s keen to play a role in Lara getting back on its feet.
“I’ve got a lot of time and a lot of love for the Lara Footy Club and particularly the playing group,” he said.
“I haven’t had that discussion with the club yet; it’s still pretty raw.
“No doubt in the next couple of weeks, we’ll work through some things.”
X: @krockfootball
