Hampden: Jason Mifsud’s starring role in 2003 Koroit premiership win

Koroit’s amazing run of success in the Hampden league can be traced back to the incredible 2003 final. Here’s how it happened.

Koroit’s stirring fightback to win the 2003 Hampden league grand final and snap a 30-year premiership drought has proved the catalyst for the emergence of a country football “goliath”.

The club has won eight more flags since the fateful day 19 years ago, when then-success-starved Koroit was in a world of hurt at halftime against Camperdown.

It trailed by 49 points and was headed for a third grand final defeat in four seasons just two weeks after blitzing Camperdown with a devastating final-quarter performance in the second semi-final.

“It was ours to lose,” Koroit coach Jason Mifsud said.

Defeat stared Koroit in the face before a second-half revival famously led by Mifsud, who booted seven of his eight goals for the match after half time.

Koroit’s 2003 premiership coach Jason Mifsud. Picture: Zoe Phillips

“The amount of people I’ve spoken to in the past 19 years who said they were at the game, but left because there was no way they thought we could win, is amazing,” Mifsud said.

Even more remarkable was Koroit hitting the front midway through the final term and surviving six lead changes in the last 15 minutes to win by seven points.

Mifsud’s seven second-half goals came in different ways – marks, run down tackles, snaps and even a free kick for deliberate out of bounds.

But the fightback had its origins at halftime with Mifsud needing to convince his players the impossible was still possible.

A starting point was stopping Camperdown from scoring.

“Clearly there was psychology around belief, but you also need to give players a plan they can apply,” he said.

“It was more about getting them to defend one-on-one and someone is going to get an opportunity.”

The defence was led by fullback Mark Bowman, Peter McDonald, captain Chris McLaren, and Andrew Paton, ruckman Luke McInerney started to get on top and midfielders Simon O’Keefe and Peter Byrne lifted.

Chris McLaren (pictured in 2017) played in his first Koroit flag in 2003. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

McLaren, who had been appointed captain as a 20-year-old three years earlier and never played in a winning grand final team, was resigned to defeat again.

“I remember coming straight in at halftime, head in hands, for a bit of ‘poor me’ time,” he said.

“But one of our supporters (Ants Mahony) gave me a bit of a tune up.

“He just reminded me that I was the captain, we could still win, don’t concede.”

McLaren is the current coach of Koroit and leads the club into another grand final on Saturday against North Warrnambool, which is coached by a former Koroit flag coach, Adam Dowie.

Carlton’s 2019 AFL Rising Star winner Sam Walsh with his family. Parents Wayne and Jacque and brothers Henry and Thomas. Picture: Michael Klein.

Wayne Walsh, the father of Carlton young gun Sam, coached Camperdown in 2003 and said the loss still hurt.

One of its prime movers, Luke Sinnott, broke his leg in a tough preliminary final win and Camperdown also missed crucial chances late in the second quarter, which would have sealed the flag.

“They kicked one late to get a sniff, a couple of things went their way with some frees and Mifsud obviously played a great game up forward,” he said.

“The worse thing we did was put a stopper (Adam Roberts) on him in the first half.

“He didn’t get a kick, so he went forward.”

Mifsud said the 2003 triumph was “enormous for the town”.

“It gave Koroit a really strong sense of pride and sense of identity around success,” he said.

“It’s since become a goliath of the competition.”

Captain Jason Mifsud, right, and coach Rodney Eade after Vic Country beat the VAFA at Barooga in 2003.

Mifsud played a major role in the turnaround from perennial underperformer to powerhouse.

His playing career started at South Warrnambool before being recruited to Warrnambool during the Grant Thomas era that netted four successive flags.

After a season at Mortlake with his brothers, Mifsud was drafted by St Kilda in 1993, but had only one season as a player in the AFL.

He was just 20 when he headed back to southwest Victoria with coaching aspirations.

The chance to coach came from Mininera league club Caramut and he repaid its faith in spades with a flag and kicking more than 200 goals.

Jason Mifsud kicked seven goals after halftime for Koroit in the 2003 Hampden league grand final. Picture: Zoe Phillips

He stayed for one more season before taking up an assistant coaching role at Koroit alongside Noel Mugavin, the uncle of Brisbane Lions champion Jonathan Brown, before replacing Mugavin in 1999.

“Noel did an enormous job,” Mifsud said.

“They would win two or three games a year for the decade prior and nearly folded in ’94.

“We ended up retiring about 1300 games experience and they were all significant figures at Koroit.

“But I was steadfast in the direction we had to go.

“It was a bit of a line-in-the-sand moment about the standards we needed to drive.

“Some people opted out, that’s fine, but what it allowed us to do was bring in a group of younger players who would be the genesis of long-term success.”

Mifsud coached Koroit for seven seasons, which included the 2003 flag, two grand final losses and three preliminary final defeats.

He was later an assistant coach at AFL level at St Kilda and Western Bulldogs.

MATCH DETAILS

KOROIT 17.8 (110)

CAMPERDOWN 15.13 (103)

Goals: KOROIT: J. Mifsud 8, B. Cassidy 3, A. Foster, D. Dobson, J. Gleeson, C, McLaren, S. O’Keefe, P. Byrne. CAMPERDOWN: B. Nolan 3, T. Fitzgerald 2. S. Chapman 2, A. Rylance 2, D. Cheeseman, D. Mahony, M. Carr, M. Sinnott, T. Baker, C. Baker.

Best: KOROIT: J. Mifsud, S. O’Keefe, C. McLaren, P. Byrne, B. Cassidy, A. Foster. CAMPERDOWN: J. Gellie, T. Stephens, D. Mahony, A. Rylance, B. Nolan, C. Baulch.

Played at Reid Oval, Warrnambool

Originally published as Hampden: Jason Mifsud’s starring role in 2003 Koroit premiership win