FOOTBALL

MID GIPPSLAND

By LIAM DURKIN

 

THIS year marks a decade since Newborough Football-Netball Club’s last senior premiership.

In this mini-series, the Express looks back on how the Bulldogs took the 2016 Mid Gippsland Football-Netball League senior competition.

This week gets into the season proper.

 

NEWBOROUGH was winning, but not convincingly.

The Bulldogs won six of its first seven games of 2016 – although two were by just 20 points against Boolarra and Thorpdale – teams who it was safely assumed could get a discount on September flights by booking in early.

With some new and young players in the line-up, coach Dean Caldow said it took time for the team to completely click.

“When you add all these new players into the team, it took us, probably until the back half of the season, we really started to gel,” he said.

“Bringing in a couple of tough, hard midfielders – no one knew these guys.

“They’d done a preseason, I didn’t know where their strengths were in terms of positioning on the ground.”

Come midseason, Newborough had well and truly hit its straps.

The Bulldogs took three teams to the cleaners in as many weeks, beating Trafalgar, Yarragon and eventual finalist Morwell East by 93, 103 and 87 points respectively.

 

MUCH as Newborough was kicking big scores at one end, its defence was holding firm at the other.

No team, including previous year grand finalist Yallourn Yallourn North, managed to score more than points 40 points against the Bulldogs from Round 13 until the start of the finals.

“Remember we had a couple of clean sheets, so to speak, that year,” senior player at the time Rob Wilson said.

“As defenders you hang your hat on that. Defensively we always held pretty strong.”

It also helped having a ruckman the calibre of Chris Hancock dropping back in the hole as an extra defender.

Boolarra only managed a total of two behinds for the entire game when it visited Newborough in late July.

That day went down in infamy across Gippsland, as most grounds resembled mudslides and players developed hypothermic symptoms.

Still, the Bulldogs managed to kick 12.9 (81).

On a dry day, that score would have likely been doubled.

Newborough demonstrated as much as spring approached.

The Bulldogs kicked 30.12 (192) against Hill End in Round 15, and backed-up by reaching 200 against Thorpdale the following week.

They topped it off with a total of 26.13 (169) at Trafalgar a week later.

As one-sided as these games were, they still served a purpose.

Not only did they allow the team to fine-tune, but players were upskilled in different positions.

Caldow, always thinking one step ahead, would often throw defenders forward, knowing full well there could be a ‘break glass in case of emergency’ moment come finals.

“I was big on not having a settled back six,” he said.

“Get some guys (from defence) up forward just to see what they could do. Having a settled back six is ideal, but come finals, I want to be unpredictable, I want a few smokeys up my sleeve.”