In another historic double for the Club, our Under 19 Div 1 and Div 3 teams both claimed premierships! Coach Tighe Chandler reports on the narrowest of Grand Final wins for the U19 Div 3 team.
A fantastic win in our Preliminary Final against a red rot favourite in Preston Bullants installed inner belief that we could do something special in our upcoming Grand Final vs Parkside on 10 Sep. With the rain belting down over night and expected wet & slippery conditions at Garvey Oval Parade my confidence rose as I knew we would be quicker and better at ground level than a taller and bigger bodied opponent in Parkside.
From the 1st bounce we played a committed and physical brand of footy that stunned Parkside (who had beaten us comprehensively by 40 points 2 weeks prior in heavier conditions) as he we hit the scoreboard early via a Matt Denny snap on goal and continued to pepper the goals in the 1st quarter and kept Parkside scoreless to take a 10 point lead (1.4. 10 to 0.0.0).
Parkside increased their efforts in the 2nd quarter and kicked two quick goals before we started to gain control of the footy and tempo of the game to kick a goal late via Lachlan Cowell to give us the lead going into half time 2.7.19 to 2.2.14.
At half time the emphasis was to back our fitness and running capacity to run over the top of them and to continue our pressure and tackling heat at every contest. Lead by Noah Hughes in the centre our mids started to run and spread and provided our forwards with quicker entries allowing Trent Meakins (1 goal) and Liam Bowles (2 goals) capitalising in front of goal to give us a handy lead going into ¾ time break by 15 points.
Heading into the final quarter and the game on the line we knew Parkside would come out hard and that they did with our defenders doing an amazing job to defend in the opposition forward 50 for almost 20 minutes smothering, tackling, bumping and getting back to support each other with no panic.
As they say “poor kicking on goal” is ‘poor footy” with Parkside kicking 1.7 in the final quarter. We finally got the ball to our wing with a clearance from deep defence and managed to get the ball out to Kyden Vella through the centre who took off towards our goal with no opposition in front of him.. one bounce, two bounces, three bounces … then the umpires whistle goes off (thinking he has run too far) but to alert us the siren had gone.
Hysteria and excitement then takes over from our strong SBMT crowd swarm the oval to embrace all the players and coaches as we held on by the barest of margins of 1 point to win our Division 3 Grand final 5.8.38 to 4 .13.37.
It was an absolute phenomenal performance by all 24 players who made the commitment to believe and trust each other and more importantly to prove that in Grand Finals all previous results mean nothing.
With Noah Hughes being judged Best on Ground and Co Captains Cody Squires, Koen Chandler and Jack Wynd we raised the Premiership Cup to celebrate and an amazing Grand Final win and the start of something special over the weekend.
A massive thank you to Paul Devitt (Assistant) and our Division 1 Coaches Caine Groves, Scott Duthie, Steve Taylor, Adrian Hale & Evan Ryder for giving up your time to help (with your GF the following day) and to all the supporters who made the long journey and made this win so special .. “Anytime anywhere”.
