By LIAM DURKIN

 

WHO said Gormandale Football-Netball Club was struggling?

While the much-maligned Tigers senior football team are still searching for a first win in more than 50 games, the club’s A Grade netball side is giving supporters plenty to cheer about.

Gormandale are currently fourth on the North Gippsland Football-Netball League A Grade ladder after nine rounds, and in the midst of a six game winning streak.

“We really didn’t expect it to go so well and perform so well,” A Grade player Chelsey Sadler said on last week’s episode of the club’s newly released podcast PoddChubb.

The run of victories has seen the Tigers defeat traditional powerhouse Woodside and predicted finalists Heyfield so far this season.

The recovery has been equally incredible. Gormandale dropped its first two games of the season, leaving many to assume another year occupying the bottom few rungs on the ladder was in order. The Tigers have been accustomed to such positions the last three seasons, finishing second-last or last every year since 2022.

However, Gormandale has now already won more games this year than it managed between 2022 and 2024 combined (six).

Leading the turnaround has been A Grade coach, Greta Douch.

A life member of the club, Douch returned to the Tigers this season following a stint with Mid Gippsland FNL club Boolarra.

A no-nonsense operator, and wife to late local horse trainer, Garry Douch, Greta said even she didn’t see such a strong first half of the season coming.

“I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, first year back that we’d get results like this,” she told the Express.

Douch has been able to add a few handy players to the team, bookending the court with goal shooter Maddy Dark and goal defence Carly Jennings, while Natasha Watson and Jaclyn Price (Greta’s daughter) have filled the wing defence and goal attack spots.

“Experience, a couple of older players, and then we’ve got younger players in the middle with speed. I think it’s been a good mix,” Douch said.

“We take a lot of teams by surprise and I think that’s one of our biggest strengths this year; they go in expecting us to be the same team as last year, even though our names are different, they don’t know what we play like,” Sadler added.

“We really shake things up in the first quarter and that’s one of our strengths – we go out hard and we go out strong and it really sets the tone for the whole game.”

With the team now firing, the coach was quietly confident about the weeks ahead.

“When I first started I wasn’t too sure what would happen, usually takes a few years to sort out what’s there (players, game plan etc), but I hope to make finals,” Douch said.

Should Gormandale qualify, it will be the first time the Tigers have featured in either senior football or A Grade netball finals since 2014.

Incidentally, Douch coached Gormandale that season, and was named NGFNL A Grade coach for the Team of the Year. Jennings was also picked in the team.

The small town club has staved off a litany of existentialist threats in recent years, as the sometimes blinded quest for senior football success can distort the true concept of a football-netball club.

As podcast host and Gormandale senior player and former senior coach, Chris Potalej explained, the Tigers were looking at the bigger picture.

“The club’s not in a spot where we’re about to shut the doors or anything like that,” he said on the podcast.

“There’s money in the bank, there’s good numbers on the ovals, there’s a lot of good things happening.

Gormandale officials met recently and put together a strategic plan.

“It’s been a massive thing for the club to put something like this in place, because everything’s there, the bones are there, but it’s just a matter of putting really good plans in place with really good people where everyone’s moving in the same direction,” Potalej said.

“This day and age, footy clubs aren’t 30 years ago (when) it was ‘Barry from behind the bar’ who could run the club, now, footy clubs are businesses.

“It’s not a quick fix. That’s something I definitely learnt (at the strategic planning session), it’s not going to be have a couple of meetings and everything’s going to be okay, it’s have meetings, put things in place and everyone play their role across the whole club.”

The whole club approach extends to netball, the often forgotten about sport in a club duopoly.

Douch said support from all sectors of Gormandale FNC had played a key role in the revival of the A Grade side.

“The club’s quite close,” Douch said.

“The girls put in as much as the football. It’s good to be recognised as well.”