Frankston is probably the most viable of the 3 tigerdell, they have decent local support as well.Someone posted a tremendous article about this.
I think its this:
At its crux is the player payments. Coburg playing 25% of the salary cap.
FWIW i went to the frankston v swans match. The swannies had a number of afl players, including tom hickey, dylan stephens, corey warner, will gould (off the top of my head).
But all 3 clubs struggling to compete at the vfa level
There are 21 teams in the VFL and clubs play an 18 game season. There are too many byes as well. The competition is a bit of a mess imo