Werribee will be able to sing I’ve Been Everywhere with substance after the completion of the 2017 VFL season.
The Tigers will spend the whole of next season on the road while Avalon Airport Oval is shut down for a multi-million dollar redevelopment.
It will be an inconvenience for the Tigers to lose home ground advantage in the short term, but the benefits in the long run will be astronomical for the club and the local community.
So Werribee will have to put up with being a roadshow next season.
The Tigers will play games in the city, suburbs and the country.
They will find their way to tiny suburban venues and large AFL stadiums and everything in between.
The fun and games begin for Werribee on April 16, when they head to Torquay to play Geelong in their season opener. The Tigers’ first game in the west will be in round two, when they play a ‘home’ game against Footscray at the Victoria University Whitten Oval.
Werribee, with its AFL alignment with North Melbourne, will take a game to Arden Street in round three, with Essendon to be the opponent.
Then it will be a significant day for Wyndham when Werribee plays a home game in round four at Hogans Road Reserve in Hoppers Crossing against last year’s runners-up Casey Scorpions. With trips to Wangaratta, Frankston and Ballarat thereafter, just to name a few, it sure will be a busy season for the Tigers staff working behind the scenes.
While Werribee will be doing the hard yards next season, it will also get the chance to play two games at the state-of-the-art Etihad Stadium – both as curtain-raisers to AFL games.
The first will be in round 10 when they meet Footscray, with the Western Bulldogs and North Melbourne AFL game to follow; then in round 16 against Collingwood, with the North Melbourne and Collingwood game afterwards.
Meanwhile, Channel 7 has extended its VFL television rights until the end of the 2018 season. The VFL had a 22 per cent increase in viewers from the previous season with an average audience of 72,000. There was also a record average audience of 266,000 for the VFL grand final with a peak of 396,000.
