WRFL: Yarraville-Seddon set to return to Division 2 in 2019

YARRAVILLE-Seddon will return to the second tier of the Western Region Football League next season as it looks to erase the pain of three consecutive grand final defeats.

Yarraville-Seddon and Point Cook do battle in this year’s decider. Picture: Local Legends Photography

YARRAVILLE-Seddon will return to the second tier of the Western Region Football League next season as it looks to erase the pain of three consecutive grand final defeats.

The Eagles produced an undefeated home-and-away campaign in Division 2 and secured a direct passage through to the decider by beating Point Cook in the major semi-final.

But they failed to produce their best in the grand final, falling to the Bulldogs by seven points.

While Yarraville-Seddon finished runner-up, the club was keen to be promoted to the top flight on the strength of its success in recent years.

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But Point Cook will compete in Division 1, leaving the Eagles in the eight-team Division 2 competition.

“We were pretty keen to get to Div 1,” president Neil Grieves said.

“We’ve got a lot of young players, so we see a lot of upside in their development. Getting them into Div 1 helps with that development.

“We think they’ll get better playing against better players.”

While loathe to make excuses for the shock grand final defeat, Grieves said the Eagles’ dominant season may have worked against them when it mattered most.

They were seldom challenged and finished the regular season with a monster percentage of 278.5, winning 13 games by 10 goals or more.

“Let’s face it, three or four of the teams in Div 2 can be competitive for a quarter, but they can’t really sustain it,” Grieves said.

“Maybe losing a couple of games along the way, (coach) Vinnie (Turcinovich) might have had more to teach about where improvement is needed under extreme pressure and all that sort of stuff.”

Yarraville-Seddon has no confirmed departures of note but has gained former Western Bulldogs, Sydney and Carlton player Andrejs Everitt.

Grieves said the club was in discussions with several prospective recruits.

“The way it’s looking, we’ll definitely have a better team next year than what we had this year,” he said.

“I don’t see any huge need to go out and get five or six big recruits for second division.

“We’re thereabouts, we just need to perform on the day.”

Grieves said there was “no expectation” on 131-gamer Everitt, who he described as a “ripper character”.

“We’re not looking for him to come and be a matchwinner,” he said.

“We want him to come and teach the guys and help them out.

“He’s probably going to get the No. 1 bit of attention week in, week out, so we probably need to teach guys how to help him.”