Ballarat: East Ballarat stuns North Ballarat in 1993 grand final

North Ballarat was cashed up, had star players, but still tripped up against an old foe in 1993. This is their story.

East Ballarat’s against-the-odds triumph in the 1993 grand final against North Ballarat remains its finest hour among six flags the club won before merging with Golden Point less than 10 years later.

North Ballarat was a country football juggernaut and destined for the VFL later in the decade.

It lost the 1990 grand final to East Ballarat and appointed triple Carlton premiership player Jimmy Buckley to add some missing steel to a talented and emerging powerhouse.

Jim Buckley soon after his appointment of North Ballarat coach in 1990.

Back-to-back flags were won in 1991-92 and North Ballarat went into the 1993 grand final in the league’s centenary season on a 49-match winning streak.

Immortality beckoned.

But the stumbling block proved to be East Ballarat and its coach, master tactician and inspirational leader Gary Odgers, who made important game-plan tweaks late in the season in the hope of rolling North.

East Ballarat was steamrolled by North Ballarat late in the second semi-final and almost beaten in the preliminary final before earning another crack at the hottest of flag favourites.

“We went to a possession-style game and didn’t want to kick the ball long,” Odgers said.

“North was so dominant at peeling off as defenders and weren’t as accountable as I thought they would be.

“Because they beat us so easily in the second semi, they probably didn’t take much notice of what we had done.”

East Ballarat 1993 premiership players, from left, Scott O'Donohue, Terry Simpson, Matt Steven, Tony Evans, Peter Jacks and Jim O'Connell. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

Odgers also cranked up the mind games to instil greater confidence in his troops.

He happily went with a rumour sweeping the city that North was so confident of glory it had already had T-shirts printed marking the historic flag hat-trick from 50 wins on the trot.

“To this day I don’t know whether it was true or not,” he said.

“You’d have to ask them.

“But we were really bullish that we could beat them.

“The second semi reinforced to us our game plan could work.”

East Ballarat had missed finals in 1992 and had undergone a rebuild on the run.

Peter O’Connell, Alister Ford, Tony Evans, Wayne Dawson, Terry Simpson, Sean Blood and Rod Gladman played in the 1989 and 1990 flags.

Experience was supplemented with young guns Scott O’Donoghue, Peter Jacks, Paul Whyte, Matty Cox, Ashley Cook and Mark Orchard.

The start of the grand final was crucial and East exploded out of the blocks.

Ford contested the centre bounces and pushed forward to bolster the team’s firepower.

He kicked two goals in the first quarter as East outscored its more fancied opponents into the breeze, 7.2 to 4.3, before slamming on another seven goals in the second to lead by 48 points at halftime.

Evans played mainly on a wing, but went to centre half-back for the grand final and dominated.

East Ballarart 1993 premiership players, from left, Scott O'Donohue, Terry Simpson, Matt Steven, Tony Evans, Peter Jacks and Jim O'Connell. Picture Yuri Kouzmin

Dawson and Gladman were prominent up forward and Odgers and O’Connell were on top in the middle of the ground.

The inevitable response from North Ballarat came early in the third term.

Michael Hynes, Brett Quinlan and Caius Ryan booted three goals in four minutes to trim the margin back to 28 points.

But momentum was halted when Buckley was booked for striking Odgers with a forearm to the head and sent from the ground for 15 minutes.

The send-off rule had only been operating in country football for three seasons and being one player short was a huge setback for a team coming from so far behind.

Soon after the skirmish, Ford kicked his fifth goal and East was back in control and eventually won by 30 points.

O’Connell said Odgers deserved a lot of the credit for the famous win.

“It was built up that they were going to beat us,” he said.

“We went in with the attitude we’ve got nothing to lose.

“(Odgers) was so inspirational in getting us fired up.

“He just embedded into us that we had to play the full 100 minutes as they would keep coming.”

North Ballarat was left shell shocked by the loss.

Club historian Stan “Digger” Roberts said the T-shirt rumour was “bulls**t”, but the club and Buckley parted ways.

“We needed someone to toughen the club up after we lost to East in 1990 and Jimmy certainly toughened us up,” Roberts said.

“In three years we only lost two games, but that grand final was a massive disappointment.”

Gary Odgers straddling a Melbourne opponent when he played for St Kilda.

Odgers and Buckley previously crossed paths in the VFL when they played at St Kilda and Cartlon respectively.

Odgers’ career began at Golden Point and after his stint at the Saints, he returned to his old club as an assistant to newly appointed coach Peter Kiel.

Odgers knocked back the Maffra coaching job before being wooed to East Ballarat by its president and City Oval Hotel publican, Barry Augustine, and coached the club to three flags including 1993.

“The first one at East in ’89 was special because East hadn’t won a premiership for 25 years,” Odgers said.

“It was also a bit emotional for me because we beat Golden Point and Point was my club.

“I always had the utmost respect for North.

“They were the ones who got themselves organised so financially they were in good shape.

“If other clubs didn’t do the same it was their problem, not North’s fault, we just had to rise to their level.”

MATCH DETAILS

EAST BALLARAT 7.2 14.5 16.6 21.10 (136)

NORTH BALLARAT 4.3 6.5 12.7 16.10 (106)

Goals: EAST BALLARAT: A. Ford 6, M. Wolak 3, W. Dawson 3, R. Gladman 2, M. Stevens 2, P. Whyte, P. O’Connell, G. Odgers, M. Orchard, M. Cox. NORTH BALLARAT: D. Seeley 6, B. Quinlan 3, S. Browne 2, J. Orr 2, A. Ford, M. Hynes, C. Ryan.

Best: EAST BALLARAT: A. Ford, T. Evans, G. Odgers, M. Cox, M. Orchard, P. O’Connell, T. Simpson, W. Dawson. NORTH BALLARAT: C. Cushion, D. Seeley, J. Orr, S. Holloway, M. Hynes, J. Buckley.

Crowd: 4400 at City Oval, Ballarat

Originally published as Ballarat: East Ballarat stuns North Ballarat in 1993 grand final