THE Morrison Medal count for the Goulburn Valley League’s top individual football award takes place next Monday night and it’s going to be interesting to see whether star Kyabram onballer Mick Mattingly has been noticed more this year than last season.
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Mattingly had a stellar first season with the Bombers and was one of the favourites to take the Morrison last year. But his performances were strangely ignored by umpires and he received only four votes.
Mattingly has had an even better season this year.
He beat teammate Kyle Mueller for the Shepparton News award and has been at the top or near the top of the Kyabram best players in nearly every game this season.
I’ve been preaching for half a century now that umpires can be poor judges when it comes to casting best and fairest votes and if Mattingly doesn’t win the medal or go close on Monday night I’ll have more ammunition for my point of view.
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ROCHESTER and Mooroopna Football Clubs have named new coaches for the 2020 season, while Tatura is the latest club on the hunt for a new coach.
Jamason Daniels, who has been in charge for the past four seasons, has been told the Bulldogs are seeking a new coach to replace him.
Noted goal sneak Steve Stroobants, who takes over from James Flaherty at Rochester, is no stranger to GVL fans having played several seasons with the club and with GVL representative sides.
This year he played one game with the Tigers but spent the season with VFL club Coburg.
Stroobants will move to Bendigo to take on the role at Rochester, which is hopeful respected former coach Flaherty will stick with the club as a player.
Mooroopna has picked up a high-profile new coach.
John Lamont, who takes on the non-playing position from Dale Osborne, has the credentials to try to lift the Cats up the GVL ladder.
He had five years coaching VFL club Werribee up to 2018 and before that was in control at elite under-18 clubs Oakleigh Chargers and Eastern Ranges.
He was to have a year off in Vanuata last year with lifetime partner Teresa but after a few weeks was back doing what he liked: coaching under-15 players from villages and taking a team to Fiji to contest the South Pacific Oceania Cup.
Lamont, who grew up in Benalla, has been on Mooroopna’s radar for some time.
The Cats’ young list was something that helped sway him to put his hat in the coaching ring and no doubt the Mooroopna huddles next year will draw crowds, given his reputation of being among the best when it comes to addressing his players.
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REIGNING McNamara medallist Kaine Herbert has committed to playing again with Undera Football Club in the Kyabram District Football League next season.
In other news from this league, Rushworth will again be coached by Steve Pateman while at Violet Town former Ovens and Murray League player Joel Price is taking the coaching reins from Sean Horsburgh.
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ECHUCA United Football Club coach Guy Campbell has been reappointed for the 2020 season despite a straights set exit from the Murray Football League finals series.
Campbell has unfinished business at the Eagles' nest and is keen to continue to develop the players he has at the club.
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FOOTBALL journeyman Ricky Thomson has won Murray Football League club Barooga’s best and fairest award.
Thomson, a brother of Lancaster McNamara medallist Steve, cut his teeth playing for Lancaster and Kyabram and has played with several clubs since those days.
Meanwhile KDL club Violet Town’s best and fairest award has been won by Matt McCarthy, while Emma Warnock took the A grade netball award.
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FOR the first time in the club’s history, Kyabram Harness Racing Club won’t be staging weekly Sunday morning trials.
Fortnightly Sunday qualifying trials will be the only trials run by the club in future.
The decision has been made due to the manpower and expense needed to run trials. There has also been dwindling trainer support in recent years.
There was a time in the club’s early history in the 1970s and 1980s when Kyabram staged bi-weekly trials — on Sundays and Wednesdays.
The Wednesday trials were staged at 1pm in the winter months and as evening trials in the daylight-saving months. They were well supported, with enough horses to often stage up to 10 trials.
For the past 20 years the club reverted back to weekly Sunday morning trials.
Young trainer Wes Shellie is following a club tradition by recently taking the reins as club president.
Wes’s grandfather, the late Bill Shellie, was the driving force behind the establishment of a new track and the development of a training centre at Kyabram in the late 1960s and a president of the club.
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They are still talking about the last-quarter heriocs of Echuca’s under-18 footballer Jack Evans who single-handedly hauled his side from the jaws of defeat to an unlikely qualifying final win in the first week of the GVL finals series.
Unbeaten Echuca had its back to the wall against Seymour in the qualifying final at Rochester, trailing by 25 points at the last change.
But young Jack stepped up to kick six last-quarter goals and steer his side to a 14-point win — and into last weekend’s second semi-finals in which Echuca beat Mooroopna to book its spot in the grand final.