2012 CENTRAL MURRAY GRAND FINAL
KERANG 19.19.133 def. WOORINEN 10.12.72
With Kerang about to write another chapter in their history tomorrow, the timing couldn’t be more perfect for our fourth – and final – chapter of this years Footy Finals Flashback series. This week, we journey back ten years to 2012, to the year when the Navy Blue domination finally took hold – with a flawless season that hasn’t been replicated since.
While the Kerang side we now know is one of grand final supremacy and full of premiership heroes, that wasn’t always the case. Leading into the 2012 season for the Blues, it was a case of always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Kerang had lost four of the last six grand finals (2006, 2008, 2009 and 2011), with their only win coming two years earlier – with a 13-point win over Swan Hill.
That joy was soon replaced by despair for the Blues, as the following year (2011) Kerang were completely humbled by a hungrier and more determined Swan Hill outfit, who embarrassed them on the greatest stage to the tune of 86-points. Kerang went into that game as red-hot favourites – and came out of it humiliated, as then young midfield star Ryan Gillingham remembers.
“I remember walking off the ground after that 2011 grand final and feeling embarrassed,” Gillingham said.
“After that game, I thought maybe we’ve missed our chance – we’d been given five opportunities and we’d won only one of them and that really wasn’t good enough. I genuinely thought that might have been our last crack at winning one after that.”
While the pain of defeat clearly burned, history shows it didn’t extinguish their hunger, with the club reloading and going again under then second year coach Paul Grayling. He was an old school coach that would use end to end match simulation drills as his go to tool most training’s.
The Blues had a number of locals return to the fold over the off season, including now household names Troy Coates and Travis Matheson, along with the recruitment of former Nyah-Nyah West United coach Justin Wilson. But for Grayling, it wasn’t the recruits that made the difference the following year, but the fuse that was lit following his teams capitulation twelve months earlier.
“When we lost to Swan Hill in 2011, looking back, I think that game probably laid the ground work for what followed,” Grayling said.
“We were outplayed and out-coached in 2011 and I think that set a fire within everyone – we had a pretty big pre-season and just focused on fixing a couple of things up.”
“We only lost a couple of players, but brought a few home-grown boys back like Troy Coates and Travis Matheson. Plus the younger boys were a bit bigger and stronger, but they also got a lot hungrier as well – it was a special group and it was definitely a special year as well.”
After having the bye in the opening round, the Blues season got off to a shaky start, with a come from behind win against NNW United at home in Round 2. While it may not have been the dream start they were after, the Blues steadily built from there, amassing win after win throughout the home-and-away season. As the season progressed, so did Kerang, going undefeated through the regular to sit on top of the ladder with a 16-0 record heading into the finals.
Their first assignment of the 2012 finals series was against Tyntynder, who a week prior had upset the team most expected to challenge Kerang – Woorinen. The Tigers were then forced into sudden death football for the remainder of the year, overcoming Koondrook-Barham to move through to the Preliminary Final, on the same weekend the Blues booked their ticket to the big dance, with a 92-point thrashing of the Doggies.
That day then set the wheels in motion for the both teams, with the Blues keeping their unbeaten record intact and the Tigers then playing – and beating – Tyntynder in the penultimate game of the season. Woorinen only just got past Tyntynder, beating the Bulldogs by 16-points, but despite the margin, the consensus was the Tigers had the talent to challenge – and upset the white-hot Kerang the following week, especially with former AFL star Andrew Lovett in the mix.
The Blues had other ideas though – and while the Tigers were slogging it out against Tyntynder, Kerang were also working themselves into the ground in preparation of what was to come, according to Greg Dickson.
“I think through that period, we realised we had to train a lot harder during that week off,” Dickson said.
“We had a similar scenario in previous years and we usually tailed off our training in the week off. I think it was after those seasons that we started training a bit harder on those off weekends, just so we could get some sort of game simulation and try and keep ourselves at a level of fitness that we needed to be in order to win it.”
“I genuinely think that made a significant difference the following week – we worked our ass off, but it made us hungrier and more hardened as a result.”
While Kerang may have been ready to go from a fitness standpoint, one thing they weren’t prepared for was a game eve illness that would see star defender Tom Brownbridge spend the night in hospital – and withdraw from the game the next day. While the news devastated the Blues, it also gave one local youngster a last-minute call up, which as Troy Coates would later re-tell, he grabbed with both hands.
“With Tom (Brownbridge) out, we had to bring Tye Manuel into the side in his place, which ended up being a masterstroke,” Coates said.
“We sent him straight to Lovett and Tye was incredible – he was probably our second-best player for us and kept Lovett very quiet that day and just annoyed and hassled him all day.”
“For one of our local kids, who was about nineteen or twenty and wasn’t picked, to come in as a late inclusion the night before the game and do the job on a former AFL star was huge.”
Gillingham agreed, saying that while Manuel wasn’t in the selected side, in hindsight, there was no better person for the role than the tough midfielder whose performance that day became the stuff of folklore.
“They (Woorinen) played us early in the year and Andy Lovett got off the chain a little bit and we sort of thought that if they’re going to win, then it’s either going to be him or Victor Siciliano that was going to beat us,” Gillingham said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone give anyone closer attention than Tye that day – I remember thinking I’m glad he’s on our side, because he was as tough as nails and just never left his (Lovett’s) side.
“Tye was like a cockroach, you just couldn’t kill him no matter what you did – even late in the game, when it was as good as over, Tye was still into him and just never relented.”
“I’m not sure who would have got the job if it wasn’t for Tye, but I’m certainly glad we picked him in the end.”
“At the same time, while it was great for Tye and he did an amazing job, it was heartbreaking for Tom – he’d been apart of the team all year and for him to miss out like that was tough.”
While Brownbridge would miss the 2012 premiership, his turn would come twelve months later, when the Blues would defeat the Cohuna Kangas in the decider – along with leading Irymple to premiership glory last Saturday in the Sunraysia Football League grand final as joint coach of the Swallows.
Kerang were first out of the blocks, with Troy Thamm opening the scoring for the Blues, before they piled on five first quarter goals to open up an 18-point lead at quarter-time. Despite being behind on the scoreboard, Woorinen weren’t without their chances, but were wasteful in front of goal booting 2.5 for the first term.
While the Blues appeared to be playing the better footy, it was their turn to not make the most of their momentum after the break, with both teams locking horns and going head-to-head for the remainder of the first half as the Tigers desperately tried to find a chink in Kerang’s armour, as the Blues took a 20-point lead into the main break.
Troy Coates had been well held by Woorinen’s Matt Iannucci in the first half, but as good as Iannucci was that day, he was about to find how hard it is to keep a champion locked down for an entire match. Although Coates would break free from the hard tag in the second half, it was a moment at the start of the third term that was the catalyst for what happened next, according to the seven-time premiership Blue.
“I was trying to break forward out of the centre square at the bounce and had the ball just tapped in front of me,” Coates said.
“I was trying to get a bit of separation on Matt Iannucci and it was the first bounce after half time and ‘Caddy’ (Aaron Cadd) just came off the line and got me.”
“To be honest, it was probably the wake-up call I needed, because my first half was terrible and I played a lot better in the second half – I went off for a little bit, got cleaned up and come back on.”
“We were watching the replay at our reunion this year and all the boys were hanging a bit of crap on me and asking if I even touched the footy in the first half, I think might have had two touches to half time so I’m glad I was able to contribute after that.”
Contribute he did, as Coates and his Kerang teammates went on a rampage in the second half – tearing the game open with a seven goal to two burst in the third term that ripped the heart out of the Woorinen side. The Blues would go on to hold a 55-point lead at the final break, with the game all but in their keeping with thirty minutes still to play – with Dickson later recalling the feeling of relief among the playing group in that final huddle of the season.
“It was a huge relief from the end of the third quarter onwards because the game was up for grabs up to that point,” Dickson said.
“To kick those goals in the third quarter and put it to bed was great, because it just meant we were able to enjoy that last quarter.”
Coates agreed with his premiership teammate, still remembering the feeling years later of those final joyous thirty minutes.
“That’s probably the greatest moment in footy I reckon, when you’re playing in a grand final and you know you’ve won it with fifteen to twenty minutes left go,” Coates said.
“Nothing’s better than that, because you’re out there with your mates and you’re still running around, but you all know what you’ve achieved and you’re able to just soak it all in.”
“You’re running around on cloud nine a bit – it was awesome in that last quarter to just experience that feeling.”
While the twenty-two players wearing navy blue had plenty of time to wrap their heads around the fact there would be no disappointment this time around, when the final siren eventually came, to a man, the overwhelming emotion was one of relief. With so much expectation to keep their winning record intact and with their season long aim finally achieved, it was a moment to finally breath again for their coach and leader Grayling.
“It was more relief than anything – because we’d won every game and I think everyone was mindful of that fact, I just felt everyone was thinking we didn’t want this to be the first one we lost,” Grayling said.
“Knowing we were going to win was a good feeling, but once that siren went it was just a feeling of relief that we got the job done because we just wanted it that much.”
“It’s nice to be able to play those last few minutes of a grand final knowing that you’ve got it won – I’ve been on the other side of it too and this was a much better feeling.”
2012 would be Troy Coates second premiership with his home club Kerang – having already won one as a 17-year-old in 2004. But as history later retells, that wasn’t his last, with the Blues going on to win five more consecutive flags in the years that followed – with one more every chance of happening tomorrow yet as well.
“I never really liked going through the year undefeated because you’re expected to win,” Coates said.
“The pressure was immense, but we had a local group of blokes and we were all pretty young back then from memory too – a lot of us were in our early twenties and we knew that if we could hold onto that group, then we’d have a good side moving forward for a long period of time.”
“When you’re young, you’re a bit more fear less and I think a lot of our guys just went out with the attitude that we had nothing to lose in that respect.”
“I think the heartache of losing four out of those five grand finals really gave us a strength amongst the playing group I suppose to make sure we didn’t go down that track again – while the ones we won were great, it was the ones we lost that hardened us for the future.”
Coates premiership teammate Gillingham agreed, with the midfield playing alongside each other in every one of the six straight titles the Blues won between 2012 and 2017.
“Success breeds success, so we got that monkey off our back and then we were able to settle in and enjoy our footy I felt,” Gillingham said.
“If we hadn’t have won that one in 2012 and bounced back from the disappointment of the year before, I reckon it could have been a lot different – I think history might have ended up telling a far different tale if it wasn’t for 2012.
