Griffith Basketball Chairman Arch Cullen said he is looking forward to the competition which will take in sides from around the region.

"We are starting our own Southern Division which will include Albury, Narrandera, Leeton, West Wyalong and others if they want to," he said.

"Junee has expressed interest and so have Deniliquin and maybe Wagga. It will be junior based to start with but could move into a senior competition down the track."

Cullen said the idea behind the formation of the competition is to try and give the juniors a better chance of being selected at a higher level.

"It is about getting the juniors a bit more credibility because a lot of the time we are told that kids can't make these teams because there are no coaches and no structure for them to get picked in the higher teams," he said.

"We will play it at the end of the year because there is a big gap there because they finish so early and then they probably don't touch a basketball till the following year so it's almost a whole year layoff with no quality basketball so this will look to fill that wedge in.

"This year might not be great but it is the stepping stone for years to come and turning it into something really strong."

Cullen said in a perfect world this would lead to a strong senior competition in the future.

"I'd like to think that it can spill into a senior competition which it needs to be because State League and the way it is structured is logistically and cost wise way to hard for anyone to be sustainable," he said.

"Wagga can't even sustain State League and they have way more members, are way better geographically situated and have always been a fairly strong basketball centre. If they can't survive it good luck to anyone."

RELATED