City must wait on just reward

By Gavin Staindl
AFTER four years, Berwick City is the Division Two champion, but the league’s best team will have to wait at least another year before it reaches promotion.
Berwick ended a string of three grand final defeats when it beat Mooroolbark 3-0 on Sunday in the women’s Division Two grand final at Comets Stadium.
Striker Joey Carey bagged all three as Berwick showed how dominant they can be with a full squad.
But despite being crowned state champions, Berwick will not be promoted because it only managed to finish third at the completion of the regular season.
Coach Tony Rafferty said his team should be playing in the higher grade and his belief was backed up last week when Berwick beat league-leaders Mornington in the semi-final.
“We deserve to be in Division One,” Rafferty said.
“We had a couple of matches during the regular season where we can pinpoint where it all went wrong.”
One of those matches was the round 15 clash with North Caulfield.
Entering the match with a full squad, Rafferty was shocked to find only 10 girls turn up.
Sickness and injury culled the Berwick side, and after going down 2-0 at half time, they courageously fought back to salvage a draw.
“If we had a full squad, without a doubt, we would have secured those three points … and that was the difference in the end (between being promoted or not),” Rafferty said.
“But it was real character-building stuff.
“We are a Division One side and our goal next year is definitely to reach Division One, so let’s hope the girls all come back next year.”