FOOTBALL

MID GIPPSLAND

By LIAM DURKIN

 

YOU have to lose one to win one.

Sometimes, you even have to lose three.

Newborough Football-Netball Club put the demons of three consecutive grand final losses to rest a decade ago, on the road to a long-awaited senior premiership in the Mid Gippsland Football-Netball League.

The Bulldogs, having butchered three golden opportunities from 2012 to 2014, weren’t expected to provide any serious challenge in 2016.

What was left of the team was older, and what was new was either first-year players straight out of or still in juniors, along with a cast of principally unknown fringe players from out of town.

Reigning premier Yinnar, and a Yallourn Yallourn North club on the rise under Morwell legend Adam Bailey, could have hardly felt threatened.

Newborough meanwhile had turned to a familiar face as coach.

Dean Caldow had played in South Australia, winning Glenelg’s goal kicking in 1994, a year after kicking seven goals in a Gippsland League premiership for Morwell.

After returning home, he played and coached Moe, and guided Newborough to back-to-back premierships in 2002 and 2003.

He came back to help run the Bulldogs’ bench in 2014, before taking on the job fulltime the following season.

Team of champions

NEWBOROUGH wasn’t losing grand finals because of poor coaching.

Allan Chandler coached the Bulldogs’ two losing deciders in 2012 and 2013. He coached Churchill to an improbable North Gippsland premiership the very next year, rolling an undefeated Heyfield when it mattered most.

Succeeding Chandler as Newborough coach was Bulldogs stalwart Glenn Michie.

It was one and done for Michie, although phonetically, he would have preferred to hear the word one said in a different tone (won).

There’d been a new coach but a familiar result – another close Newborough grand final loss.

The Bulldogs lost all three of its grand finals by under a goal.

Newborough’s team in 2012 was heavily stacked with Gippsland League players. They lost to a team of knockabout Trafalgar locals akin to Robin Hood’s merry men.

Two years later, the Bulldogs were single-handedly denied by someone who has defied all medical science, when Shane ‘Choco’ Peters kicked the winner with 90 seconds left to hand Mirboo North a one-point premiership.

Sandwiched between these was arguably a dose of bad luck, as Mirboo North brought Liam Nash in for his one game all season.

The future VFL player teamed up with his two brothers, one of whom kicked the winning goal with a tumbling punt that bounced through.

What was happening on grand final day however was only part of the problem.

In two of the three seasons, Newborough had finished on top of the ladder.

In two of the three finals series, the Bulldogs had gone straight into the grand final after winning the second semi.

In 2014 alone they’d beaten Mirboo North by 90 points during the finals.

Newborough clearly had strong teams, but the question remained: how could they be so dominant but keep losing grand finals?

For Caldow, the reasons were obvious.

“Undisciplined and egos were probably the two biggest things,” he said.

“That day at Morwell East (2014 grand final), me not being a coach, just running the bench, I was pretty annoyed and frustrated with what I’d seen.

“You lose three grand finals under a goal – that’s not bad luck – there’s some problems there.

“One of my favourite sayings is ‘ability and talent will only take you so far’. Ability and talent was given to you by your parents.

“Toughness and hardness, whether it’s Mid Gippy or higher, will get you the job done.

“That’s what we were lacking.”

Next week: Part 2 – getting the band back together.