COLAC District Football League chairman Peter Lucas says clubs need to unite if they want senior interleague matches to return to the district.

The debate returns each year after Victorian Country Football League selectors overlook talented CDFL players for their representative squad.

South Colac coach Stephen Hammond said interleague matches would give the league’s top players a chance to show their abilities at a higher level.

But Mr Lucas said it had been more than 12 months since club officials raised interleague at a delegates’ meeting.

“Stephen Hammond had some comments which he’s more than entitled to make,” he said.

“If he wants to push the barrow for interleague, he’s better off doing it through his club and getting all the clubs on side and bringing it to a delegates’ forum.”

Mr Lucas said the league would want to ensure its best players were available if interleague went ahead.

He said each club could poll its best “five or six” to see if they would be interested in playing.

“We’d want to make sure the best players would be prepared to play,” Mr Lucas said.

“Initially the squad would be 30 to 35 players so we’d want to know we can be competitive and it’d be an ongoing thing, it’s not something we’d dip our toes in for one year and then stop because there are setting-up and outfitting costs,” he said.

“We would want to make sure it’s ongoing.”

The next league delegates’ meeting is on July 4.

Irrewarra-Beeac playing coach and 2009 Jack Mahoney medallist Khan Beckett is among a host of players that said they would support interleague football.

“It’s hard to say how we’d go because it would depend on who would play but I think we should have interleague,” Beckett said.

“The CDFL isn’t rated because we don’t do it and I reckon we’d push a fair few leagues, that’s my view,” he said.

Thirty-two leagues in country Victoria and New South Wales played in the country championships this year.

Geelong Football League is ranked two and will take on number-one team Goulburn Valley Football League next season.