The trophy recognises the contributions of three Jacks to each club’s history—Moama’s Jack Eddy, Echuca South’s Jack Hay and Echuca East’s Jack O’Neill — and is awarded to the club with the best overall performance across all 11 football-netball grades on the day.
Moama is on a long-running streak of holding the trophy, having retained it again in the most recent edition on Good Friday, the Magpies winning all but one grade across both codes.
Based on current tables heading into a second meeting of the season, Moama has the edge, though Echuca United’s netball grades are largely matching their rivals.
The main showcases are the two senior clashes and this edition of the football fixture should be a well-fought affair, with the sides only two places apart on the ladder.
Echuca United’s season has been filled with ups and downs, the Eagles having a 3-5 record, with quite a few of their matches being close run.
That included a huge 14-point win over reigning premier Cobram last weekend, though coach Francis Lias isn’t getting carried away with the major scalp, despite it providing a confidence boost ahead of playing Moama, which has only one more win than the Eagles.
“Coming off a good win this week, we're pretty happy with the way we performed in aspects of the game, but we just keep identifying areas that we can improve in and keep working on that,” Lias said.
“For us, it's another game, we just want to come into every week improving, making sure that we're addressing the areas that we need to address to get better.”
The week-to-week mindset is shared by Moama coach Shannon Keam, though looking at the Magpies’ previous three outings holistically paints a picture of a side heading in the right direction after a slow start.
After sitting 1-4 following a thrashing at home to Cobram, Moama restored its form with close wins over Deniliquin, Rumbalara and Finley.
“It's (the win streak) probably just been on the back of a little bit of continuity in our side, we sort of haven't been fortunate with injuries early in the piece,” Keam said.
“We've been able to play better across four quarters to give ourselves a bit of an opportunity at the end of the game to win.”
Meanwhile, the A-grade netball isn’t expected to be as closely contested as the football, though like their clubmates Echuca United’s netballers enter the weekend on a high from their first win of 2026.
“We're heading in the right direction,” Eagles coach Leesa Hooppell said.
“We feel like we're probably starting to play our game plan a little bit more and (with the) girls being so young, (we're) a bit more composed and we seem to be playing a lot better as a team.”
Moama boss Carri Carter played down the notion that the Magpies winning was a foregone conclusion.
“It doesn't matter where you are on the ladder, there's such a build up to this game,’’ Carter said.
“I know that Echuca United got really close to Nathalia because I think they felt like they had nothing to lose, and then they played a really good game, so they're starting to enjoy their netball.
“Then, obviously, last week had a really good win, so they're kind of hitting their straps as a team now, but in saying that, respectively, so have we, we've had some really good wins against Rumba and Deni, so we're on a bit of a streak as well.”
Moama sits fourth on the ladder, currently on a four-game winning streak, while before last week’s win, Echuca United did push unbeaten league leader Nathalia all the way, only losing by 13 goals.
This weekend’s edition of the Three Jacks trophy will be held at Echuca South Recreation Reserve on Saturday, with the first football clash beginning at 9.15am and the netball starting at 9.45am.
The A-grade netball begins at 1.30pm with the senior football from 2pm.
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