Wonthaggi oval condition questioned as clubs go to the league

A second Gippsland League club has gone to the league over the state of the Wonthaggi football ground ahead of this Saturday's fixture against Sale.

Record July rainfall and a further 20mm in the past few days have left the main oval at Wonthaggi Recreation Reserve carved up and holding water with a fortnight of the home and away season still to run.

The Sentinel-Times walked the ground on Friday and the surface squelched underfoot, with pools of standing water across the playing area, mounds of churned mud running through it in tyre tracks and sand tipped into the deeper holes doing little to fill them.

Sale coach Jack Leslie said his club's officials had raised the ground with the Gippsland League.

"It is more about player safety. We understand it is wet weather footy and they have had a lot more rain than what we have down here," Leslie said.

Leslie said he would not go out on it himself.

"I'm coming back from a knee reconstruction and when I saw the ground I thought, not being soft, but I wouldn't play on that ground at all. I wouldn't risk it," he said.

"For any guys that do have any small injuries, you'd be silly to risk it.

"If there's 20 centimetres of mud that you're going to sink into and try and twist, it's a little bit different. It's not the 80s anymore."

Sale is not the first club to go to the league.

It is understood Maffra raised the surface with league officials before its own trip to Wonthaggi and the matches went ahead, with the Maffra seniors beaten by 100 points.

Video shot by Maffra and Sale players criticising the state of the ground has circulated among clubs since and is what brought the condition of the oval to wider attention.

Leslie said his players had no issue with playing if the league cleared the ground.

"If the league says play on, it's play on, no stress at all. We still want to play, that's the main thing. We're not trying to cancel a game at all," he said.

He was also quick to say the fault did not lie with Wonthaggi Power.

"We've played on bad ovals, but that's probably the worst of the lot I've seen for a while. But it's not their fault, it's just bloody footy and weather," Leslie said.

The reserve is owned and managed by Bass Coast Shire Council.

A council spokesperson said recent wet weather had significantly affected the oval and crews had been on site through the week removing surface water and carrying out maintenance where conditions allowed.

"Additional maintenance efforts have been directed to Wonthaggi and will continue to do so over the remaining two weekends of the season," the spokesperson said.

"There are no finals scheduled to be played at Wonthaggi this year."

Mayor Cr Brett Tessari, a former Wonthaggi premiership player, said the ground had gone beyond what council had hoped to get out of it.

"We've had a helluva lot of rain but for sure, it's pretty terrible at the moment," Cr Tessari said.

"We had hoped to get to the end of the season before starting the major reconstruction works but it hasn't quite panned out that way."

"The club has been on to me about it. I'm well aware of the situation."

Council has $720,000 in its 2026-27 budget to strip the oval back, install new drainage and resurface it, including $250,000 from Sport and Recreation Victoria.

Cr Tessari said the funding would not stretch to laying turf.

"The project calls for grass seed so it will take most of next year before it is ready," he said.

"Fortunately, we have two excellent ovals, at Inverloch and Dalyston, to use. It's not ideal but we saw what happened when Phillip Island went on to their oval too early."

Six Southern Gippsland Junior Football Competition finals due to be played at Wonthaggi on Sunday August 9 have been moved to Leongatha and will start at 9am.

The council spokesperson said clubs would typically assess ground conditions before a match, with the league making the final decision on whether games went ahead.

Wonthaggi Power and the Gippsland League has been contacted for comment.