ps8.3 The Bombers are presently doing an extensive review of the club, with the future of the reserves side one of the areas being scrutinised.

The VFL club expects to have its review completed by the end of July as it looks ahead to 2009.

The future of the Bombers reserves side has been a source of constant discussion in the football community since its inception in 2005 and that has continued to be the case this year.

The reserves have struggled to be competitive this season, losing all nine of their games by an average of 96 points.

“If you go by the results the side isn’t tracking all that well, so we will be certainly looking at ways of improving the opportunity for the younger players to play footy, which is what we have to do,’’ Bombers acting general manager Peter Lodewijks said yesterday.

“So that could be VFL reserves, or it could be another solution, I don’t know.

“What we’re doing is, we’re trying to establish does it make sense to have the reserves, so we’re asking a lot of the young players about that.

“But it’s not just us, it’s the VFL who put requirements on certain things. We could say, 'we don’t want reserves', but they may say, 'no, you can’t do that, you need to have them'.

“So there are big things to look at because if we don’t have reserves, we become a very small club, and we don’t want that either.’’

Asked if the club’s preference was to maintain the reserves side next year, Lodewijks answered: “What’s best for the club is what needs to be done, and we’re reviewing that at the moment.

“If that means we don’t have reserves, then that’s the solution we will go with, but if we do have reserves then we will have to look at how that operates.”

Hopefully, by the end of July we will have a clearer indication of what the club will look like for next year and how we move forward.’’Before the Bombers introduced their reserves side in 2005, for the first two years of their existence in the VFL, players who didn’t get a senior game played with their aligned local club.

Since their inception in the VFL competition, the Bombers reserves have played 63 games, winning just 13, while they are presently on a 15-game losing streak.

The side’s last victory was in round 14, last season, when it defeated the Northern Bullants 19.15 (129) to 10.13 (73) at the Queen Elizabeth Oval.

Despite the lack of success, first-year reserves coach Steve Thomson said the playing group’s spirits remained high.

“The core group of players we have are really good to work with, but at the same time, things are being put in place to up the recruiting of young blokes to prop up the numbers come our next pre-season,’’ Thomson said.

“We will be trying to build the list so the blokes have to work a bit harder.’’

The reserves suffer the most from the flow-on effect of injuries at Essendon and in Bendigo’s senior team as for the past three games, the reserves haven’t fielded the full quota of 22 players. Leg 5 Such have been their struggles with player numbers, 38-year-old Justin Berry, who works for Essendon, filled in against North Ballarat at Windy Hill last week.

“The guys who have played seniors like James Flaherty, Blair Holmes, Josh Bowe, Jon Coghlan and Stewart Crameri have been super with the young players, so we just have to keep perservering,’’ Thomson said.

“Of course the boys get a bit downhearted if they don’t win, but we keep telling them there’s always next week and the ball will always go back to the centre after a goal for them to have another crack at.’’

The reserves players will tomorrow catch a 6am bus from Bendigo to travel to Cranbourne for their match with the Casey Scorpions.

In the senior game from 2 pm, the Scorpions promise to provide the Bombers with tough opposition.

Casey sits in second position on the senior ladder having won its past three games.

The Scorpions’ past three victories have come against Geelong and Sandringham - who have won the past two premierships - and Coburg, last year’s runner-up.

Casey’s line-up includes Jarryn Geary, a winner of the Bendigo Pioneers club champion award, who has played eight AFL matches for St Kilda this season.

The Bombers head into the round 12 game in 11th position on the ladder, and on the back of a 13-point defeat to North Ballarat.