Paul Newman was among half a dozen Lancaster players involved in Saturday’s qualifying semi-final against Murchison-Toolamba at Girgarre who had played less than half of the home and-away-games in the Kyabram District League this season.
There is a reason no team has managed to win three successive Kyabram District League senior football premierships in the modern era — that much was clear on Saturday at Girgarre Recreation Reserve.
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Lancaster’s 43-point loss to top team Murchison-Toolamba came on the back of a frustrating year where two-time Lancaster premiership coach Tom Davies has been forced to try and emulate the “man management” feats of Geelong AFL coach Chris Scott.
Scott is renowned for “managing” his players to the minute, regularly resting his stars during the season proper by using his charges on a horses-for-courses basis to set up their finals campaign.
The craft of managing players has become a necessary addition to any coaching resume, but achieving the feat in the team’s biggest game of the year (so far) proved one step too far for Davies and the Wombats on Saturday.
SIX DECADES SINCE THREE-PEAT
THREE IN A ROW
Only Shepparton East, in the Kyabram District Football Association seasons of 1958-59-60 has managed to win three titles in a row.
BACK TO BACK
Six clubs have achieved back-to-back success since the formation of the Kyabram District Football League in 1960, but none has won three in a row. When the 2021 finals series was abandoned Lancaster was on top of the ladder and won the next two titles, but was not awarded the premiership.
They should not, however, be completely written off after two seasons of dominating the competition. In horse racing terms several of the Wombats could be “better for the run”.
Half a dozen of his semi-final team, that’s almost a third of the 21-man squad, had played less than half the Wombats games this season. Up until Saturday that hadn’t proved an issue, the team having lost just one game (with one draw against the top team) in the lead up to the weekend.
Conversely two-thirds of the Murchison-Toolamba had played 13 games or more this season.
Only five Lancaster players — co-captains Charlie Mclay (42 goals) and Sam Spedding, Sam Vick, Noah Sewell and star goalkicking midfielder Zac Cerrone (70 goals) — had played all 16 home-and-away games.
Despite the changing face of the team during the season there were 16 of the 21 players from last year’s winning grand final team in Saturday’s lin-up — the only newcomers being Wez Hill, Paul Newman, Riley O’Neill, Nicholas Kellow and Shannon Fleming.
They have replaced the retired Jake Mills and Brad Orr, along with Jack Donnell (Stanhope), Luke Davies (Shepparton Swans) and Kyle Kidd (who played in Saturday’s losing reserve grade team).
Of the players to have missed most of the regular season only key defender Nick McAuliffe had played more than half (nine games to his credit for the year). He missed the first four games of the season, then another three weeks late in the season before playing the final two home-and-away games.
Lancaster ruckman Ricky Thomson had appeared in only three games before tackling the league’s best team on Saturday.
Ricky Thomson, Lachlan Boscarini, Morrie Serra, Wez Hill, Nick Ryan and Paul Newman all played six games or less this season.
Thomson played just three games, the first of those back-to-back in rounds 10 and 11, before missing three weeks and also the final home-and-away game of the season against Shepparton East.
Missing games is nothing new for Thomson. He played only five home-and-away games in 2023 before featuring in both the Wombats finals wins.
Boscarini played four of the opening five games, but did not appear again until the final game of the season. He played 10 games with the Wombats in his first season last year.
Serra played round one, but didn’t appear again until round 11 and has only played six games (kicking 15 goals in those) this season. Last season he played 15 games and kicked 20 goals.
Hill has played the last three games at senior level, having played three games earlier in the year. He played all six games from rounds 8-13 in the reserves.
Nick Ryan has played only six games, but hasn’t missed since returning in round 11.
Paul Newman has played just six games, but only one of those was against a top three side — Shepparton East in the final home-and-away round.
In the end it may not have even been the lack of game time during the home-and-away season that impacted the result, but it probably didn’t help.
The Wombats do, however, live to fight another day and will be hoping to get another crack at Murchison-Toolamba on the big stage — if they can overcome Shepparton East this weekend.
