Goulburn Valley: Rochester fighting back from flood heartache in 2023
We take a deep dive into how Rochester football rebounded after the 2022 floods, to be destined to play finals in its 150th year.
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It was the stock-standard coach handover.
Home grown, champion player who had sat one out, one back learning the ropes until the incumbent called time and moved on.
Ash Watson was a Rochester star on any measure.
A premiership player in his first season back at the club after a short stint in the AFL, five-time club best and fairest and Goulburn Valley medal winner.
Watson’s ascension to the top job came at the end of the 2022 season.
But what happened only a matter of weeks later was far from ordinary.
Rochester recorded its biggest flood in history with close to 1000 homes going under, leading to a painstakingly long and disruptive recovery for the town’s 3000 residents.
When flood waters started to subside and the enormity of the damage became obvious, Rochester president Justin Cleary said “real discussions” were held whether the Tigers would play in 2023.
“Nearly everybody in that meeting room had their house ruined,” he said.
“If you didn’t have your house ruined it was your parents, other members of your family.
“Some people had their business plus their houses flooded.
“It was openly discussed, can we do this?”
The newly appointed coach and his family were no exception.
Like so many, they lived in a caravan or moved in with in-laws until they could return.
The fallout from the tumultuous events of late 2022 also took precedence over what happened on the field last year.
Rochester, unsurprisingly, slid to 10th spot on the ladder.
“It was more about recovery in the first year,” Watson said.
“The club became that place of connection with everyone needing that place to go.
“Myself included. We were out of our house for a number of months.
“It was a bit of a tough run for everyone.
“Our volunteers and people who were doing jobs around the club weren’t even living in town.
“It was hard to go about normal business, but now we can regenerate a bit more and push up.”
Rochester has more than pushed up in 2024.
The team from the smallest town in the GV league has reached the middle of the season destined to play finals.
It is also the only team to beat Echuca, which is aiming to win three flags in a row for the first time.
“We’re positive, we’ve got 150 years as a club to celebrate,” Cleary said.
“We’ve also had players with long-term injuries getting fit again.
“Ash set a new standard for training and we recruited a few good players who have really given us a boost.
“We’re having a good time and we’ve got a sense of pride because we’ve really helped our community.”
The Echuca-Rochester rivalry is legendary with both clubs moving to the GV in the early 1970s.
Echuca has a 3-0 record in grand finals against Rochester, which has not won a flag since 2008 when Watson was in his second season back at the club after playing seven matches in four years at North Melbourne.
He retired as a player in 2019 after playing 217 senior matches.
“Coaching is a totally different feeling to playing,” he said.
“I just love the connection with the players.
“Everyone is pulling on the same rope to achieve the same thing.
“We like the underdog mentality.
“The club has been reasonably successful competing against the bigger towns of Shepparton and Echuca.
“We definitely see it as a strength being a one-club town.
“There was a point last year where we had 21 out of the 22 players who ran out, had been to Rochester Secondary College.
“It comes back to that local connection with the people.”
The Watson family’s connection to Rochester runs deep.
Ash’s dad, Bruce, played more than 300 matches for Rochester and is a GV Hall of Famer.
His grandfather, Jack Anderson, famously helped recruit Melbourne captain Noel McMahen to the club in the late 1950s when it won two flags and made another two other grand finals before the former Demons star returned to the VFL to coach South Melbourne.
Watson said another Rochester coaching legend, David Walliams, had largely shaped his approach to the job.
“He was old-school, but really big on that connection as well,” Watson said.
“He drove that small club in a big league type of mentality, as well as his professionalism.”
Rochester’s surge up the ladder has been helped by the addition of Bendigo league recruits, Ryan O’Keefe, Mitchell Trewhella and Dillon Williams.
Williams played for Eaglehawk the last two years, but is a Rochester local.
Will and Hugh Hamilton, Nick O’Connor and Andy Henderson hardly played last season due to injury, but have returned.
Rochester also has two club best and fairest winners, Doug Wren and Joe Atley, eyeing off late season comebacks.
The run to finals resumes on Sunday when Rochester plays Kyabram with a return bout against Echuca at home on August 10.
Watson said the early season win against Echuca was “reward for effort to know we were on the right track”.
“It also gave us a bit of confidence that if we played the way we wanted to play we could beat anyone,” he said.
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Originally published as Goulburn Valley: Rochester fighting back from flood heartache in 2023
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