LIAM DURKIN
FOOTBALL
MID GIPPSLAND By LIAM DURKIN NO ONE would feel left out in the Turner household. After all, Mirboo North Football-Netball Club veteran Damien Turner can let each of his four kids wear one of the four premierships medals from his career. The Tigers stalwart celebrated a significant milestone recently, running out for game number 300. Turner was able to bring up the triple ton at home in the Round 2 match of the Mid Gippsland Football-Netball League. Mirboo North made sure it chaired the milestone man off with a win, after defeating Stony Creek 15.8 (98) to 7.11 (53). The left footer contributed a goal, in what was an occasion that acted as the main performance to what looks like an inevitable encore in a matter of weeks, when he runs out for his 300th senior game in the yellow and black. Turner has played virtually all his open age matches in the senior grade, but a few reserve grade games in his very young years meant he reached the mark of 300 club games just a little bit sooner. “It’s a bit of a tricky one. I played my 300th club, at the end of the year, assuming I don’t get too banged up and I can play the majority of (senior) games, I’ll play my 300th senior. There is a 10 or 12 game differential at the moment,” he explained. While it looks a foregone conclusion he will eventually get to 300 senior games, the bigger story brewing is the likelihood of him also breaking the senior games record for Mirboo North. Chris Shiels and the late Sam Gervasi are the only two people that have played 300 senior games for the Tigers. The record stands around the 310 mark. Mirboo North held a function in honour of Turner after his 300th match, acknowledging a length of service that has extended far beyond running around for a couple of hours on a Saturday. Turner captained the Tigers senior side for nine seasons, leading them to three premierships, as well as coaching a number of junior players who he later played alongside. Reflecting on the journey, Turner said it was amazing to think how much yet how little had changed across nearly 20 years of football. “It goes quick. Everyone tells you it goes quick, but you don’t realise it until you get a milestone like that,” he said. “I played in 2007 when we won the Grand Final, that was my first year out from 18s. You blink and that’s gone. I’m grown up now with a family, that’s probably my reflection at this point. “Because we’ve got quite a young squad now, I think back to when I was them a bit more, it’s a bit weird being the old one now, I always saw myself as the young one … I just keep turning up and playing footy.” Turner may well have been ahead of his time, playing as a designated winger long before it was fashionable in the AFL. “Always played there. I’d say 80 per cent on the wing, bit of half-back, bit of half-forward, never got in the square, they never let me in the square,” he joked. “I always found it good running up and down, the left foot probably helped. I think all coaches like to have one of each on each side of the square (a left and right footer).” Spectators have seen Turner covering a lot of grass between the arcs over the years, in his trademark long sleeve jumper. Like most things, he isn’t exactly sure how it started, but is something he’s continued with. “It must have been ’08, ’09 when I got the long sleeve, just a thing I’ve done … extra votes maybe,” he said. “Everyone laughs at me in preseason when it’s a bit hot, but then I’m the one laughing in the middle of July (when everyone else is wearing short sleeves).” Amazingly, current Mirboo North coach Peter Mongta was there when Turner was just starting out. “He was my first coach, and he’s back around again,” Turner said. “We had a bit of a laugh about that, me and Shotty (Mongta). I was just a little light-weight string bean on the wing when he first started coaching me, now I’m just a little bit balder.” Mongta has coached Turner across two stints, as has Troy Hamilton, while his other senior coaches have been Matt Holland, Clancy Bennett, Josh Taylor and Tony Giardina – who handed Turner his senior debut all the way back in 2005. With highly respected names like that synonymous with the Mirboo North area, it has meant standards and expectations have hardly ever wavered at the Tigers, so much so, last year was the first time the senior team missed finals in 19 years. “It’s been good. Even when Joffa (Holland) coached, Troy was helping on the bench, same with Clancy, Troy was on our bench. Ubby (Taylor) came on board and Clancy was still around, so we’ve always kept the group together,” Turner said. Turner took over the captaincy from Simon Busuttil in 2012, a position he held until handing over to Hudson Kerr this season. “It was a massive honour. I’m trying pass that on, Huddy (Kerr) understands, we have 17-18 year olds in the team, hopefully one of them might want to do it one day and we can make one of them understand that it isn’t just a label,” he said. “I always made the point I’d do it during Ubby’s reign, we’d try and achieve something together, then I just thought last year with Ubby finishing up it was a good time, with all the young kids coming through, fresh coach, fresh captain.” In what was a case of good timing, Turner was able to play his 300th on the same day his successor played his 100th. When it comes to captaincy, there can surely be no greater thrill than taking to the dais and accepting the premiership cup on Grand Final day. Turner has lived that dream not once, or twice, but three times. While all Grand Finals carry great storylines, the three Turner has won as captain are so good you could honestly make a movie about them – because they all very nearly didn’t happen. Back-to-back victories in 2013 and 2014 were decided by less than four points, while the 2017 triumph made a mockery of the term ‘mathematically possible’. “It’s crazy … literally down to kicks,” he said of those nerve-killing deciders. “Kal Nash in 2013 just tumbled the ball through, Choco (Shane Peters) 2014, and then ’17, far out, Yinnar had a shot at goal as the final siren went. “It’s cliché, but when you talk about moments it’s pretty true, you pinch yourself … it’s crazy.” Some of those moments have indeed been career defining. Peters kicked a goal in the dying seconds of the 2014 Grand Final to win the game by one point. “Don’t want to sound cocky but it’d be nice to win one by 10 goals I reckon,” Turner said laughing. The last two premierships Turner skippered appeared such an outside chance of happening, it defies logic even writing about them. In 2014, the Tigers lost the semi-final by 90 points, and then beat the same opposition when it mattered most. In 2017, they won four games up to the halfway mark, crept into finals on percentage, and then won four sudden death play-offs on their way to lifting their most recent flag. Such events were perhaps in keeping with something Turner said happened in Mirboo North during the early 2010’s. “Around that 2012/13 era we just got this ‘never say die’ type attitude,” he said. “We just got this knack of never giving up and it’s a pretty contagious thing, if one bloke does it, the next bloke, the next bloke, all of a sudden you’ve got 21 blokes that just fight and fight. “You have to learn to win a bit, and I think Mirboo North have learnt to win the tough ones and stick at it.” That attitude had a ripple-effect into all corners and seasons at Mirboo North. The cricket club won their share of highly improbable premierships around this time as well. While it is hard to quantify exactly what it was, those who know local sport will know there was some sort of, almost mystical, quality about Mirboo North teams around this time. There was a period where it didn’t matter what Mirboo North did in the regular season, when it came to finals – especially Grand Finals – they were almost a different team. “You just have to get there, (to a Grand Final) once you are there, anything can happen,” Turner said. “I always pushed ‘just don’t give up’, even when you are 100 points up in the middle of July, push your structures, set your zone up properly. “You learn not to throw in the towel, as captain you can get that message around ‘we know we’re good enough’. Turner acknowledged having players with a vast amount of finals experience certainly helped, as did true ‘big game’ players in legendary full forward Tim Traill and ruckman Don Webb. He pointed to the former as being the best player he has played with, although not by much from Webb, who was drafted to Port Adelaide. “Tim is pretty hard to go by,” Turner said. “He made you look good. If you kicked it within a five metre radius of him, his man would be on toast, he’d mark it and kick the goal 90 per cent of the time. “Tim captained one year but hated that stuff, he didn’t want to be captain, he just wanted to kick bags of goals. “I’m very lucky, I don’t take any of the people I played with for granted. Even Ubby, Jack Robertson, they were all good footballers, Choco, could real all the Nashs off (Jake, Kallum, Liam), Liam is a VFL premiership player, Jake is a multiple best and fairest winner for us.” As far as premierships go, Turner found it near-on impossible to split two of them in terms of favourite. “They are hard to separate … honestly I could flip a coin between ’14 and ’17,” he said. “’17 we weren’t even in the finals six weeks out, ’14 just for the way the finals series went, ’13 we were quite dominant through the year and then snuck home in the Grand Final, (and) ’07 was great.” Across 300 games, there has been no shortage of quality opponents either for Turner. He rated former Boolarra hard-nut Matt Dyer highly, along with Yinnar’s Liam Visser and Yallourn Yallourn North stalwart Barrie Burnett. More modern day Jets Dean Macdonald and Keenan Hughes are also “serious players” according to Turner. But, when choosing one above the rest, Turner shared the same view that most long-serving Mid Gippsland footballers have when deciding who the best player in the league has been in the last decade or so. “Jimmy Dowling from Yinnar stands out,” he said. “There was no crap with Jimmy, he just got in, won the ball. Over longevity, I look at guys like Jimmy Dowling (as being the best).” Moving forward, the 34-year-old felt he had some years left in him, although admitted “it is getting harder”. “I’ll certainly play as many games as I can while I can,” he said. “You look at blokes that have battled injury and they might play 150 games in the same amount of years that I’ve played 300, so I’ll just play while I can.” Coaching a senior team in his own right is also on the cards for Turner, and something he said he would look at if the opportunity arose. Like all good left footers, his right leg has only been there for balance – or in case of emergency. “Reckon I’ve used it five times in my career … kicked a goal once on the right, I’ll never forget that,” he said. The milestone man wished to thank his family, coaches, teammates and Mirboo North FNL for their support over the journey. With four premierships to his name, if he wins another one, he might even get to keep a medal for himself.
