There are hopes that after a five-year hiatus senior representative football could soon make a return to the calendar.
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The last time a representative game was played back in 2019 where the Riverina League took on AFL Canberra and the Farrer League went up against the Hume League.
The return of representative football was brought up at the AFL Riverina annual general meeting over the weekend.
Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong president Jason Hamblin was supportive of the concept returning but believed that some structural changes could be required to ensure it was manageable.
One of the changes he suggested was to potentially target players in their early to mid-twenties as a way to ensure you weren't having too many pull out due to lack of interest or unavailability.
"I'd love to see rep footy come back," Hamblin said.
"Especially after how much top end talent has gone out of the comp this year from all clubs, locals that have gone off to test themselves.
"Maybe they might've stayed another year if they had the ability to play rep footy and test themselves at a higher standard.
"When you have it is another thing, people like to get away on the long weekend down to Melbourne and watch a bit of footy so maybe you could have it at the start of the season there.
"Each club could nominate their better local players and maybe you get them two weeks before the first round and you have a rep game with a combined RFL and Farrer side playing Sydney or Canberra.
"Maybe you could sweeten the pot by having it somewhere you could watch an AFL game as well in the first round or two.
"But you are also looking at player and volunteer fatigue as well, then AFL Riverina that's more work for them to do that.
"There's plenty of reasons to do it, but there's also reasons not to do it as well I guess."
Clubs have in the past raised concerns about playing representative footy as it provides an opportunity for players to get injured.
Hamblin said that he'd be fully supportive of Lions players to play rep footy and believed it would benefit those fortunate enough to play at a higher standard.
"I'd be supportive of it," he said.
"I think a lot of clubs wouldn't nominate their paid players who they've recruited as there's no sense in that.
"But I'd be fully supportive of my top end local talent to get an opportunity."
AFL Southern NSW community football and competitions manager Luke Olsen said that AFL Riverina would definitely support the concept returning if they were able to make it work.
"We'd be more than happy to look at it as an opportunity," Olsen said.
"Obviously it's a busy season and everyones busy, historically we've found it harder and harder in the past to get players to commit or want to play representative football.
"The carrot needs to be there for the players to put their hand up first and foremost, but if the opportunity was there then we will definitely look at it.
"Because in the past it has been a really important part of the season."
Olsen made note of the representative program that will see AFL Canberra and AFL Sydney go up against each other this year and revealed AFL Riverina would be keeping a close eye on the success of that series.
"I know this season there is a couple of games between AFL Canberra and AFL Sydney," he said.
"Then they'll pick a representative team to play against a Tasmanian team so there's a fairly decent commitment there.
"You've got a couple of games within your league and then if you get picked in that next level then there's a third game you have to commit to.
"So there's lots of water to go under the bridge, I know we'll look at the AFL Canberra and AFL Sydney model really closely this year and see how that works.
"Then we can make an educated decision on what it's going to look like next year and how it impacts us."
