WHILE Drouin and Traralgon were duking it out in the Gippsland League on Saturday, their respective coaches were far from adversarial.
In fact they were on the same page.
Hawks coach Bob McCallum and Maroons’ equivalent Mark Collison were preparing to team up for Sunday’s AFL Victoria Community Cup as members of the Victoria Country side to tackle Victoria Metro for intrastate bragging rights.
United in state colours for the second year running, McCallum and Collison combined to help Victoria Country topple their city rivals and send legendary retiring coach Peter Knights out on a high note.
Coincidentally the Maroons versus Hawks clash fell on the corresponding weekend last season, and again both men were glued to their phones for updates while in camp.
“It was a funny one, the same thing happened last year, so it’s becoming a regular occurrence for us,” McCallum said.
“We were sitting by our phones on the Saturday (getting updates), we had a bit of a training session and that was the only time we weren’t by our phones, but in the end we (Drouin) got done by 90 points so he was smiling and I wasn’t.”
As the dust settled on their clubs’ fortunes, McCallum and Collison refocused on the task at hand and contributed to a 37-point Victoria Country win on Sunday.
Kicking with the wind in the first quarter, Country slotted 5.5 (35) to nil, with McCallum chiming in for a major, to set the game up.
Victoria Metro found its feet in the second with a pair of goals to Western Region Football League duo Jase Perkins and Braden Ferrari, but Country weathered the assault and the wind to hit back. Golden Square’s Thomas Tona opened his account with a classy running goal, while teammate Campbell Floyd’s pressure around the packs allowed his side to go into half-time with a comfortable 29-point lead.
Metro garnered some momentum through the third term but Country’s defence soaked up the challenge in the fourth and allowed the side to kick away to a solid victory.
McCallum, who suffered a knock to the ribs in the first quarter which curtailed his involvement late in the match, said it was an honour to be part of Knights’ last game in charge and would take plenty away from the experience.
“It was just a great experience to be part of Peter Knights’ last hoorah for Victoria Country; we were really happy as a group to get that done… we didn’t want to be the group to let him down,” he said.
“You’re always learning as a footballer no matter what position you’re in, but looking at training and that sort of thing, obviously Peter Knights has played at AFL level and been in the system a long time… I’ll certainly be taking a lot of the drills back home with me.
“Just as a player, training with the best of the best, it’s just a great experience. Over the years I’ve noticed straightaway that the skills lift personally as you go along and you take that home with you.”
It was a second Victoria Country cap for McCallum, after making his debut in 2015, and the Gippsland League’s reigning best and fairest has never shirked away from the big stage.
While he conceded there was a culture of reluctance in country football to pursue higher honours at times, he had always placed a high value on representative football.
“Something I’ve always thought is if you get the opportunity to play at a higher level you just take it with both hands no matter what you’re missing at club level,” McCallum said.
“I think a lot of guys are a bit standoffish because they’ve got commitments to their home club and they don’t want to let them down; if it starts at club level I think they get a lot more success with people taking it on.
“My Drouin club has been really good with these sort of things and they’ve pushed me to take these things on, and that support really helps.”
Drouin was also represented by Todd Beck in the Victoria Country under 19 clash against the Victorian Amateur Football Association, which went back-to-back in the AFL Victoria Under 19s Challenge courtesy of a 44-point win at Waterview Reserve, Mernda.
