NOBODY would envy Paul Newman naming the best side he has been associated with as a coach or player at the Kyabram Football Club.
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Newman’s playing career elevates him comfortably into the top echelon of players ever to have ever pulled on a Kyabram jumper and in the Goulburn Valley League.
His coaching record is even more remarkable.
When he stepped down last year as coach of Kyabram he boasted a record of leading the Bombers to 83 wins — 62 of them in succession to claim a state record — and one loss in 84 games over four seasons. In those 83 games there were three premierships and one runners-up trophy.
No coach in the history of any GVL club can boast a record like that.
Along with the legendary Jeff Cooper, Paul is commonly recognised as one of the greatest Kyabram players never to have played AFL football.
Paul made one brief attempt at it in the early 2000s but didn’t do it justice because the lure of returning to country life in Kyabram was too strong.
Melbourne Football Club’s loss was Kyabram’s gain.
Paul developed into one of the most freakish players ever to wear the Kyabram jumper.
His aerial wizardry astounded Goulburn Valley League fans for over a decade.
No-one in the club’s history has had a better pair of marking hands than Paul who, when on a roll, embarrassed some of the best defenders in the GVL. Made them look silly, really.
Deceptively quick with his loping stride and iron-clad marking, Paul kicked 764 goals in his 222 senior games for Kyabram — and possibly a lot more points.
He also became the only Tongala player to kick 100 goals in a season when he played there in the 2015 season, when his brother David was coaching the Blues.
Paul has had the honour of captaining the GVL representative side on four occasions and he represented the league more than 20 times, captaining the GVL to a Country Championship triumph.
Paul coached the Kyabram thirds to a flag in 2013, the same year he led Kyabram, as its captain, to a drought-breaking senior GVL flag.
Paul said he had to do a lot of pondering to name his best Kyabram side from his years as a player and coach.
‘‘I can tell you it was very difficult and I had to leave out players that would get in most other best GVL teams,’’ Paul said.
Paul said two of the hardest opponents he played against in the GVL were Seymour’s Jeff Anderson and Echuca and Rochester’s Guy Campbell.
He rates another two Seymour players, Paul Scanlon and Saad Saad, among a list of elite players he played against in his time in the GVL.
Although he didn’t play with them or coach them, Paul rates Brad Campbell and Ben Langley as two standout players for the Bombers in his time.
Paul’s best Kyabram side from his coaching and playing days:
Backs: Rhys Clark, Josh Vick, Tom Holman
Half backs: Tom Sheldon, Jason Morgan, Lachie Smith
Centres: Mick Mattingly, Jordan Williams, Brett Deledio
Half forwards: Nathan Beck, Billy Burstin, Simon Seddon
Forwards: Kyle Mueller, Kayne Pettifer, Nick Holman
Followers: Jake Reeves, Chris Atkins, Liam Ogden
Interchange from: David Newman, Axel Childs, Luke Morris, Brad Mangan, Sam Sheldon, Xavier Hilton, Linc Withers, Patrick Wearden, Hayden Gemmill, Josh Linton.
● He’s been around the GVL scene for more than 60 years as a player and trainer.
Barry (Sparks) McMeeken started his football career captaining Tongala in the first season of a GVL thirds competition in 1958 in which only western towns contested.
He spent 15 seasons at Tongala before moving to Kyabram to live. He went on to serve the Kyabram Football Club as a trainer for 37 years.
So he is well qualified to name the best team during his days with the Bombers and he has also named his second best side:
BEST SIDE
Backs: Mick Craven, Richard Clay, Darryl Ryan
Half backs: Shane Fitzsimmons, Ian Boyd, Craig Dyson
Centres: Kelly O’Donnell, Rod Bray Maurice Wingate
Half forwards: Paul Newman, Ross Dillon, Garry Lyon
Forwards: David Lucas, Chris Stuhldreier, Benny Gugliotti
Rucks: Ian Burgess, Peter Gittos, Jeff Cooper
Interchange from: Tony Bull, Peter (Lippy) White, Andrew Johnston, Tom Sheldon.
Coaches: Peter Lyon, Peter White
SECOND BEST SIDE
Backs: Mick Ryan, Paul Rowlands, John Linfiord
Half backs: Lachie Smith, Jason Morgan, Tony McDonell
Centres: Bill Fry, Charlie Stewart, Lawrie Casey
Half forwards: Brett Deledio, Ian McDonald, Dennis Ryan
Forwards: Chris Salter, Kayne Pettifer, Shane Loveless
Rucks: Jake Reeves, Jordan Williams, Peter Warburton
Interchange: Josh Vick, Freeman Lewry, David Newman, Bernie Harlen.
Coaches: David Williams, Fred Wooller
● COVID-19 may have prevented Tongala Football Club’s Darwin-based star Cam Ilett from enjoying a Victorian season, but he still managed to play in a premiership side.
Illet joined Alice Springs-based side Rovers, who recently won a fourth successive flag in the Central Australian Football League.
Rovers beat a fast finishing Pioneer to take the flag by 15 points at Alice Springs’ Traeger Park.
Illett has committed to returning to Tongala for the next Murray League season.
● Many of the freakish feats of former Seymour footballer Saad Saad have been captured on video.
A package video on YouTube on Saad has been assembled by keen Seymour sports fan and photographer Rob Brooks.
Brooks’ camera was always pointed at Saad when the ball was about to be delivered into Seymour’s forward line and he has been able to capture many of the freakish marks and goals Saad kicked in his days at the club.
The video had amassed an incredible 30,000 views up to last week.
● Former GVL representative player Ben Reid is returning to play with Echuca next season.
A classy defender, Reid, 28, last played with the Murray Bombers in 2016 before joining VFL side Geelong.
Reid is excited about his return to Echuca, particularly with its emerging talented group of young players.
● Frank Brew, whose life was claimed recently at the age of 92 by COVID-19, was to have coached Murray Football League Club Deniliquin in 1952.
But his bid was thwarted by VFL club South Melbourne Football Club, which refused to clear him.
But two years later Frank ended up joining rival Murray Football League Club Finley as coach and led them to a flag.
Frank, who was only 171cm (5ft 7in) and weighed just 67kg (148lb), played 87 games with the Swans from 1947 to 1953.
He was also an accomplished cricketer with the Northcote Cricket Club in Victoria’s premier cricket league and became a curator of the Carlton Cricket Club, a job he performed for 30 years.
He was a left-arm wrist spinner blessed with a deceiving googly, and also a hard-hitting lower order batsman.
He made a quickfire 47 in the famous District Cricket final in Melbourne in the 1965-66 season when Northcote chased down Essendon’s declared score of 514, which is forever etched into the cricket history books.
Australian great Bill Lawry famously announced when Essendon declared it would come to regret the ‘early’ declaration, a prediction he proceeded to carry out, making 282 not out to guide Northcote to the unlikely flag win.
Frank also played with the Finley Cricket Club enough to earn him Murray Valley Cricket Association’s Hall of Fame status.
Ironically Frank died on the Mornington Peninsula on the same day (August 15) the Finley Football Club farewelled one of its greats, triple premiership player Louis Koschel, who played under Frank in the 1954 Finley premiership side.
● Picola and District Football and Netball club Mathoura has reappointed Darcy Robinson to lead the club in the 2021 season.
Robinson said he felt the club was moving towards a strong future and it wasn’t a difficult decision to make.
Mathoura made the elimination final last year when it lost to a more experienced Rennie side and will target experienced players to recruit to try to remedy that situation next season.
● Deniliquin Bowling Club has pulled out of the 2020-2021 Campaspe Valley bowls pennant season.
Members last week decided it was too risky at this stage to enter Victoria for games due to COVID-19.
But Deniliquin bowlers still keen to play with a Victorian club in the CVBA will be able to apply for a special permit to do so.
● There hasn’t been too much sport played this year apart from at the elite level, but junior football and netball seasons featuring NSW-based Picola Football Netball League clubs were completed recently.
In the Under 14s footy grand final the unbeaten Deniliquin Rovers went down to Berrigan by 63 points — 12.5 to 2.2 — in the season decider.