Endeavour Hills was unbeatable in the second half of the Southern Division 2 Under-19s season, winning 13 consecutive games to taste the ultimate success and return to Division 1.
The Falcons were too strong for Hampton last week to win a thrilling grand final by 15 points, 7.11 (53) to 4.14 (38).
Coach George Kountourogiannis was “ecstatic” with the victory, crediting the players and his coaching staff for their support and commitment throughout the year.
“I was really thrilled for the boys, they have had a huge buy-in … they got together at the last minute and nobody really knew each other as we only had about six or seven players from 2024,” he said.
“It was really pleasing to see all of the effort they put in, and the reward was a premiership at the end of the day.”
It has been a meteoric rise for the Falcons in the space of six short months, who at the start of the year were no certainty to even have a team.
“It was a difficult and challenging period, I wasn’t even sure if we would have an Under-19s team, we were trying to negotiate with Narre Warren at that stage, because we knew they had around 60 players,” Kountourogiannis said.
To set the scene a little more, the Falcons had just been relegated from Division 1, they won two games last year and had been smashed with injury.
The culture wasn’t great and there had been issues with player behaviour last season, two things that Kountourogiannis was determined to fix quickly.
“Priority number one was our behaviour, there were a lot of internal punishments, game suspensions and actual fines as well – we tried to nip that in the bud quickly,” he said.
“We fixed those things up from day one and there was a big tick there. Then we built the bond and connection between the players and coaches, which went a long way.”
The team found players from near, far and everywhere to form a team which would go on to achieve something special.
Kountourogiannis is a big believer in statistics, analytics and video analysis to help the development of the players, and when Hampton “flogged” the Falcons by 84 points in round 3, he and his three coaching assistants got to work.
On top of that, they also lost three of their first four matches, before going on a ridiculous 13-game winning streak to finish the year with a flag.
“We started to really gel together, get the buy-in, and focus on what we needed to do to bridge the gap against Hampton, looking at things we weren’t getting right,” Kountourogiannis said.
“The mindset was; regardless of where we are on the ladder or scoreboard, let’s have a crack and try to get the best out of each other.
“Hampton hadn’t lost to anyone until we beat them in round 10, we had them in the last round of the year and got them again.”
Then finals rolled around and the Falcons did it again … winning by two points against the Hammers to advance to the season decider.
After winning the toss, Endeavour Hills elected to kick against the wind with the knowledge that Hampton always outscored them in the final quarters, hoping to rewrite that narrative and come home strong.
But the Falcons were convincingly beaten early and Hampton had seven shots from 16 entries, numbers that concerned the coaches.
“Thank goodness they couldn’t kick straight at first, otherwise it could’ve been a different story – but credit also goes to our boys for the pressure which made their shots on goal challenging,” Kountourogiannis said.
The second term was better for the Falcons, locking down Hampton star Noah Green and getting some good looks at goal thanks to Mitch Grant’s midfield dominance.
At half time, they had taken their chances to lead 3.3 (21) to 0.8 (8), but the Hammers began to surge, kicking three goals in the third and another one in the fourth.
Despite this, Endeavour Hills held on by 15 points with Grant receiving the best on ground medal for a brilliant performance.
Nikolas Christodoulou led the way for the Falcons up forward, booting three goals in the low scoring contest, while the open grade also won the grand final, capping off a brilliant day for the club.
