NINE players from the Northern Football League have been selected in Vic Metro’s preliminary 47-man squad to play Vic Country next month.
The best senior players from across the state will go head-to-head on July 10 when Vic Metro takes on Vic Country in a blockbuster clash for the 2016 AFL Victoria Community Cup.
Vic Metro has a distinctly NFL flavour with Montmorency duo Jesse Donaldson and Ben Fennell, Matthew Dennis (Bundoora), Cameron Elmore (Lower Plenty), Jarrod Hodgkin (Heidelberg) Rhett Jordon (West Preston-Lakeside), Dan McLinden (Greensborough), Wayne Schultz (Northcote Park) and Justin White (Macleod) all selected in the preliminary squad.
Despite falling to a 30-point defeat to the Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League last month, the NFL has the equal second most representatives in the squad, behind the EFL who has 12 players named.
Donaldson and Dennis – who have both represented Vic Metro over the past two years – captained the NFL representative side during the 2016 AFL Victoria WorkSafe Community Championships, while Elmore was named the NFL’s best player in defeat.
Six players from the MPNFL were selected in Vic Country’s preliminary squad, including former Greensborough skipper Tim Bongetti.
The number one ranked Geelong Football Netball League shares the most representatives in the Vic Country squad with six players, along with Goulburn Valley Football League and Peninsula Football Netball League.
199-game Footscray legend Brian Royal will take charge of Melbourne’s top senior talent, while the WorkSafe AFL Victoria Country side will once again be coached by Hawthorn legend Peter Knights.
Both sides will be keen to continue their winning representative form from 2015 after Vic Metro defeated AFL Queensland by 84 points and Vic Country defeated the VAFA by 62 points.
Vic Metro won the last encounter between the two sides back in 2014, when it claimed a 38-point win.
Both Vic Metro and Vic Country will release their final squads of 23 players in the coming weeks, with a venue to be finalised soon.
CLICK HERE to see the full squads.
