WorkSafe 2008 VCFL Country Championships

By Brad Kingsbury
THE Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League Sharks went within one game of winning the weekend’s VCFL Pool B Country Championships at Sale in a great effort that celebrated the league’s 100th anniversary season in fine style.
The Sharks poleaxed the WGLFL in game one on Saturday and then fell over the line against the Bendigo Football League thanks to an Andrew Williams goal in the dying minutes of game two.
This set up a ‘grand-final’ clash with the Geelong Football League for promotion to Pool A in the final game.
However the Sharks were unable to overcome the strength of the Geelong Football League, going down by 22 points in the league’s only game on Sunday.
After the inaugural Pakenham-Berwick Gazette Cup was won in decisive fashion by the MPNFL in the showcase game on Saturday, confidence was high in the Sharks’ camp that they could go all the way.
The comprehensive nine-goal victory settled the argument about which neighbouring league was the best in 2008.
Both camps were confident that they had the side to win both the Cup clash and the championship and the first five minutes of the game was typically intense with players keen to get their hands on the ball, creating a number of stoppages.
The conditions were perfect for football, but the ground was still damp from overnight dew and several WGLFL ball-handling errors in the midfield saw costly turnovers produce goals to the Sharks’ Andrew Williams and Michael Henry, setting the home side on to the back foot early.
The WGLFL did not recover and Williams, David Willett and Matthew Burns banged on five more unanswered goals in the next 10 minutes to ice the contest before the half-time break.
Experienced WGLFL performers Hayden Burgiel, Troy Makepeace, Nick Hider and ruckman Matt Gray tried to turn the tide, but there was no stopping the Sharks whose advantage in pace and class was obvious.
Playmakers Shaun Daly, Ricky Clark, Brad Scalzo and big ruckman Don Epa were simply too good for their opponents, while slick defenders Jared Goldsack and Adam Hunter ran off Daniel Stubbe and Kane Martin respectively, to set up attacking moves time after time.
The difference at half-time was a whopping 41 points with Ryan Allan scoring the WGLFL’s only major at the 20-minute mark of the one-sided contest.
The home side responded to a call to show some pride from coach Ben Soumilas and opened the second half with three of the first four goals, but it had no answer for the dangerous Sharks’ attack led by former AFL sharp-shooter Williams and tall forward Ben Shultz.
Williams finished with five goals in a best-on-ground performance, with Daly and Clark also among the vote-catchers.
In the second game the BFL jumped the MPNFL and booted away to a five-goal lead in the first half before Casey Cardinia League counterparts Ricky Clark, Luke Walker, Jared Goldsack and Andrew Williams combined to lead a great second-half comeback.
The Sharks hit the front when Williams slotted his third goal of the game (his eighth for the day) from the 50-metre line at the 27-minute mark of the term and hung on desperately for the next three minutes to win the crucial match.
In the final game the MPNFL challenged the GFL, but made errors at critical times that proved costly.
At half-time the Sharks trailed by two goals and, despite superb efforts from Clark, Beau Miller and Brian O’Carroll, the GFL proved too strong.
Sharks’ coach Paul Kennedy was proud of the effort and described the spirit and pride showed by the players as terrific.
“The desperation was really good throughout and that was pleasing,” he said.
“I thought we put the opposition under pressure and our tackling and approach to the whole series was excellent from training through to the games.
“I was proud of that and proud of the way the players represented the league as a whole.”
The next VCFL interleague country championship series is scheduled to take place in 2010, while 2009 will see the MPNFL and the WGLFL play a rivalry match tentatively scheduled to be held at Pakenham.