EDFL: Aberfeldie’s perfect 2015 Premier Division season
Powerhouse Aberfeldie ended a memorable 2015 campaign with a record EDFL grand final victory, erasing the pain of back-to-back defeats in the decider, with the premiership side featuring six players with AFL experience.
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The opening round of the 2015 campaign heralded a significant step in Aberfeldie’s bid to silence the doubters and right the wrongs of Septembers past.
With the club fresh from the torment of consecutive grand final defeats, it faced rival Greenvale in Adam Potter’s first match at the helm on April 11.
Abers trailed by 22 points at three-quarter-time at Clifton Park before a blistering seven-goal-to-two last-quarter burst gave them a memorable nine-point victory.
It was the beginning of a perfect path to premiership glory.
“I remember the Round 1 game pretty fondly against Greenvale when we were down at the last change and we came back and won that game,” 2015 co-captain Luke Davis reflected this week.
“After that, we had a pretty strong belief we could finally get the job done.
“I think the self-belief was the key, knowing we could come back from that sort of deficit and still get over the line.
“It just set the platform for us for the year.”
Aberfeldie completed an unblemished home-and-away campaign with a monster percentage of 278.08 underlining its dominance as it finished four games clear on top of the ladder.
A 50-point win over Greenvale in the major semi-final followed before the indomitable outfit put the exclamation mark on a season of excellence when it powered to a record 76-point victory over the Jets in the decider, snapping a 41-year premiership drought.
Angus Graham claimed the Reg Rose Medal for best afield in the grand final after booting seven majors.
The former AFL big man had started the season at Albury before reuniting with Potter – who coached him at VFL club Coburg – and pulling on an Aberfeldie jumper for the first time in Round 11.
“He played one of the best games I’ve seen,” Davis said of Graham’s display.
Luke Blackwell, Josh Cubillo, Mark Lynch and Nic Cattapan also featured prominently in the final game of the year.
While Abers had no reason not to be chock-full of confidence, the pain of the previous two seasons ultimately played in their favour and protected them against the threat of complacency.
“I’d done it before in juniors. We went undefeated for the year and lost the grand final by a point,” Davis said.
“Anything can happen in the big games.
“But we knew, and had belief, that our best was good enough to win on the day.
“But you obviously had to put it all into place on the big day.
“It was probably just a culmination of all the hard work over the years.
“To finally put it in place on the day that we had to do it, it was a really special thing.”
Abers are affiliated with the Essendon District Football League, but they were in a league of their own in 2015.
The all-conquering side featured six players with AFL experience — Davis, Graham, Reimers, Blackwell, Brock McLean, Josh Toy
The club lost just eight of 80 quarters for the season and kept its opponents to just one goal or less in 42 terms.
Potter was named coach of the year, while Toy (back pocket), Cubillo (captain, wing), Reimers (forward pocket), Graham (ruck), Lynch (ruck rover) and Blackwell (interchange) were all selected in the season’s best team.
Davis – now a three-time premiership-winning skipper – declared it the best team he had been a part of.
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“Internally, we could feel the pressure that we had to get it done – and we put that pressure on ourselves because a lot of boys had played in those losing flags,” he said.
“As a club, you feel for the people who put so much time into it, like the (former) president John Larkins.
“It was great to enjoy the success with them.”
Aberfeldie has contested the past seven grand finals – hoisting the silverware in 2015, 2017 and 2018 – and is regarded as one of the EDFL’s powerhouse clubs.
The importance of the triumph of five years ago cannot be underestimated.
“It was a ‘monkey off the back’ mentality I suppose,” Davis said.
“To get back in 2017 and ’18 … we wanted more success and ‘Pottsy’ put all the right pieces in place for us.”
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