mmg.com.au

Kialla Park president Braden McIntyre says a league scoresheet penalty has dashed his club’s two Premier One teams’ finals hopes.

Three clubs are caught up in Goulburn-Murray Lawn Tennis Association’s hardline stance on late scoresheets.

League secretary John Gibbs, in consultation with president Brian Gledhill, wiped all points awarded in round-six matches between Nathalia and Shepparton Bombers and Kialla Park’s two teams — the Dragons and Demons.

Rule 12 in GMLTA’s by-laws reads: ‘‘The home team will be responsible for the original scoresheet being forwarded to the ladder secretary no later than Thursday following the match. Failure to do so will incur a loss of points.’’

Gledhill said yesterday home teams Nathalia and Kialla Park had received prior warnings, but could regain their points if they had a worthy excuse.

McIntyre, who thought he had three weeks to send the scoresheet in, said club officials were unlikely to challenge the penalty.

‘‘I’m not overly impressed, but the rules are the rules and if they want to do it (strip us of points), they’ll do it,’’ McIntyre said.

‘‘That’d be it for us (with the Dragons and Demons 22.5 and 27 points, respectively, outside the top four).

‘‘I spoke to (league committeeman) Damian (Smith) yesterday at a function at Tat and he said he would give me a call this week in regards to whether they would take points or give warnings.’’

McIntyre said Smith had called him before to warn him about late scoresheets, but could not recall receiving any emails.

The News could not reach Shepparton president Malcolm Thiel or Nathalia president Helen Ginnivan for comment.

Gledhill said Nathalia was a ‘‘repeat offender’’ and Kialla Park was ‘‘a bit slack’’ last season and clubs had to improve their reliability.

‘‘Gibbsy is trying to get everything finalised from week to week — the ladders and all that stuff — and he can’t do that without scoresheets,’’ Gledhill said.

‘‘We had one issue with Strathmerton this week, where they didn’t put scores in the computer, but they rang me up and explained their computer had broken down.

‘‘We can understand issues like that, but we can’t when there’s no excuse.’’

Gledhill said there were also still problems with club officials missing the 10pm Sunday deadline to input scores onto the website.