GFL Grand Final: All the news for St Mary’s 2022 premiership
St Mary’s has the unique title of being back-to-back premiers, separated by a two-year hiatus, but captain Jack Blood believes the Saints could have snagged one or two more flags in that period.
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St Mary’s has the unique title of being back-to-back premiers, separated by a two-year hiatus, but captain Jack Blood believes the Saints could have snagged one or two more flags in that period.
The Saints ran out comfortable 45-point victors over Leopold in the GFL’s grand final, with the win securing the club’s second premiership in five grand finals, in a run of sustained success dating back to 2016.
Blood said missing out on the past two years of football made 2022’s triumph more meaningful.
“This one’s pretty rewarding, the last three years have been hard for everyone around the world, but having sport back this year was so great.
“It’s a little disappointing to miss finals the last two years when the side was so strong, but you give anyone a chance and they can win on the day.
“On a different day Leopold could easily have won it, they’ve shown this year they’re as good as anyone, so just because we won in 2019 didn’t mean we would’ve won in 2020 or 2021.
“You can’t help but dream what could’ve been with it, our group was pretty much the same through the two cancelled seasons so we felt really good about our chances.”
Blood was one of St Mary’s most influential players in the grand final win, recording 20 disposals, eight marks, 10 tackles and one goal for the day.
He was one of eight St Mary’s players to record at least 20 disposals in the game, with Zak Sherman leading the way on 26 touches.
The skipper said the depth of the team’s midfield was highlighted in the game after star Ben Moloney was sent to hospital with a groin injury.
“Ben is probably our biggest midfielder, he makes sure his presence is felt so to lose him early definitely hurts,” he said.
“But the beauty with our team is that we can all adapt to our roles depending on the way a game has gone, (Harry) Benson can step up into that role and play more inside but he can also play outside.
“Jarryd (Garner) can also go more inside or outside depending on what we need, so we’ve got plenty of players who can step up or step in and do something different if we need to.
“We’re able to fill it pretty well with our midfielders, then we’ve got someone like Paddy (Dowling) who can come into the centre square and be really damaging if we need him to do that.
“He’s obviously really good up forward and he’s so dangerous around goals, but to have someone who can come in and take a bit of a load in the centre really takes a bit of pressure off the midfielders.”
GRAND FINAL STATS: Full breakdown of St Mary’s flag win
St Mary’s co-coach Glenn Keast said his side’s premiership victory was aided by “an even contribution from all 22 players” after his side ran away with a second consecutive flag.
The statistics from the game, that have been recently released, painted that exact picture, with no true stand out performance.
Winger Damian McMahon was awarded best on ground for his damaging performance on the expanses of St Albans Reserve, but his counterpart on the opposite wing arguably had greater influence on the result.
Joe Maishman played the midfield-forward role with damaging effect, recording 23 disposals (17 kicks), four marks and three inside 50s, while also booting 3.2 in the win.
McMahon, who started on the half back flank but soon found himself commanding the wing, had 19 disposals (15 kicks), five marks and two inside 50s.
The leading disposal winner for St Mary’s was Zak Sherman, who collected 26 disposals and 11 marks, while Leopold captain Marcus Thompson was held to just 16 disposals in a predominantly forward role for the day.
Thompson was battling a hamstring injury that limited his output on the day, but the skipper still showed his class in the loss with 12 contested possessions, four marks, five tackles and one goal.
Ruck Trent West had the dominance in the air with 60 hit outs, but Leopold’s midfield struggled to gain ascendancy around the contest.
‘There’s no way I’ll be playing’: McMullan‘s unlikely road to flag
St Mary’s Trent McMullan has revealed his initial fears he would miss the GFL grand final after straining his hamstring.
The key forward suffered the injury in the Saints’ qualifying final win against Newtown & Chilwell, and seemed unlikely to prove his fitness for the season decider.
But McMullan was named and, with his right hamstring heavily strapped, exploded in the first half, kicking three goals to set up a memorable premiership victory.
He said he feared the worst when he pulled up lame on a lead two weeks ago.
“As soon as I felt it go (against Newtown & Chilwell), my immediate thought was ‘there’s no way I’ll be playing’,” he said.
“The team all year had the ‘next man up’ mentality, so I knew that whoever came in would be ready to go, but all I could think about was how unlucky I was.
“Training on Thursday was tough, I had to still tick a few boxes and luckily I was able to do that.”
In the week before the game, co-coach Travis Robertson said McMullan would not play if he did not pass fitness tests on Thursday night, but the key forward showed no issues relating to his hamstring at training.
McMullan said there were some nerves early in the game.
“There was one or two passages in the first quarter where I felt it more than I would’ve liked, that’s for sure,” he said.
“I just knew I had to play through it, it was a grand final and you put your body on the line for it.
“After the first quarter it started to feel a bit better as I got into the game, but it was certainly a pretty nervous time early in the game.”
The forward kicked three goals in the opening half, including a running snap on the boundary line in the first quarter, to help the Saints skip away to a 30-point lead at the main break.
It was McMullan’s second premiership medallion after being one of 14 St Mary’s players to win in 2019 and 2022.
“I came to the club and played in the losses in 2017 and 2018, but won 2019 and obviously 2022 now,” he said.
“I couldn’t be more thankful to be in a position to win premierships, everyone around the club is awesome and everyone wants that success that we’ve been having.
“The couple of years off with Covid weren’t ideal, after winning 2019 we probably thought we were in a position to win a couple more, so we’re pretty thankful to win our second one three years later.”
Departing star Lion ‘is Leopold’: Hocking
Lions coach Garry Hocking says Jai Thompson “is Leopold” as the 2016 premiership captain prepares to depart the club following Saturday’s grand final defeat to St Mary’s.
Lions players gathered in a huddle on St Albans Reserve post-match before heading into the rooms following the 45-point loss, as Hocking said Thompson was moving home to Balmoral.
“That was Jai Thompson. He’s going to move on and retire; I think he’s going to go back to the country where his family needs him,” Hocking said.
“Jai Thompson’s been an absolute star – premiership captain 2016, been a warrior. He is Leopold. If you think of Leopold, he is Leopold.
“We wish him well and we’ve got to find someone to be able to replace him now.”
The opening 30 seconds of Saturday’s contest reflected the past three weeks of finals, with Leopold jumping out of the gates with the first major, its strong finals form looking as if it would carry on.
But from there St Mary’s found its groove, restricting Leopold to one and two goals in the second and fourth quarters while the Lions kicked with the breeze.
“We started well, started really well, kicked the first goal of the game and then they (St Mary’s) just (got) the game back on their terms a little bit,” Hocking said.
“Probably a little bit fumble at times where we’ve (usually) been fairly clean, and that’s off the back of their pressure, too.
“I guess when you turn the ball over like that you lose your shape a little bit, so they were better at probably holding their shape a bit.
“We just stayed in the fight for as long as we could, but just overwhelmed there in the end; they’re a very good side.”
Reflecting on his first year at the helm of the club, Hocking said Leopold had taken giant strides in the right direction.
“We’ve made big steps to get here after just coming together,” he said.
“It’s been a massive step for the group. The experience will do us wonders.
“This year was all about trying to sort of work out where we sit in the pack; I think we sit up fairly high.
“Have we got some work to improve on? Yes. Do we feel like we’re good enough? Yes.
“This year we wanted to … ask questions of the group and I think we got a lot of answers – and we got some really good answers – and there’s a couple of things we’ve got to keep working on.”
‘We played perfectly’: How Saints set up grand final rout
St Mary’s co-coach Glenn Keast said a dominant first half was the pivotal reason his side was able to secure back-to-back flags.
The Saints piled on six goals to two in the opening half before running out 13.13 (91) to Leopold’s 6.10 (46) victors.
It is St Mary’s second premiership in the past five seasons, with the flag set to hang alongside 2019’s triumph.
Keast said it was “almost” a complete performance from the group.
“We played perfectly, I mean almost, if you don’t count the first 10 seconds when they got a clearance and kicked a goal, they played perfectly,” he said.
“From that moment on we were really switched on and we were very good, the conditions were pretty tricky, so we needed to make sure we took advantage of that wind.”
An early breeze helped the Saints gain a strong first-quarter lead, while their defensive unit stifled any Leopold attacks in the second term to set up a 30-point buffer at the main break.
Saint Damian McMahon was awarded best-afield for a strong display on the expanses of St Albans Reserve.
Keast said the experienced winger was “enormous” in the win.
“He was enormous for us, he’s a big-game player and he really controlled the game for us,” he said.
“His kicking going forward was really good and his ability to provide us with spread made us dangerous.
“In that first term, it wasn’t until we started looking to use those lanes and get the ball out on the other side that we started really putting pressure on, and that theme carried through the game.”
Forward Trent McMullan came into the contest under an injury cloud after straining his hamstring in the qualifying final against Newtown & Chilwell, but he shook off any notion of carrying anything with a three-goal opening half.
Keast said the medical team had done an “awesome job” with the key forward.
“He certainly didn’t look hampered at all today, did he?” Keast said.
“The medical team had a big job to get him right to go and they did an awesome job, there’s always that risk of it going in a game but he ticked every box on Thursday and was right to go.
“It’s great that he did because he ended up being one of those match winners for us, especially in that first half when he really dangerous.
“He obviously was against the clock to come back from that hamstring, but we were able to get him back fit and firing really quickly.”
Almost all of St Mary’s premiership stars from 2019 played on in 2022, with 14 players winning their second premiership on Saturday.
Keast said the culture of the club drove players to want to remain together and compete for premierships.
“There are players like a Harry Benson who could be playing at a higher level but wants to stay at the Saints, guys like that are so important to the culture,” he said.
“It shows there’s a genuine love and care for each other, so to have that as well as such a strong skill set across the board really boosts the team’s chances for success.”
Premiership cup tour planned for hospitalised Saint
St Mary’s will embark on a premiership tour to visit a teammate that could not hang around for the celebrations of its 2022 grand final victory.
Midfielder Ben Moloney was taken to hospital during the first quarter with a groin injury, with the star Saint set to undergo scans on Saturday evening.
Saint captain Jack Blood said the reason was still unknown, but Moloney was in good spirits.
“I spoke with him on the phone, he’s getting a scan tonight (Saturday) and they’ll know a bit more after that,” he said.
“He’s in a little bit of pain, but it’s a bit of a weird one where they don’t really know how it happened.”
Moloney was awarded the best-on-ground medal for his efforts in 2019, but was not able to repeat his efforts with Damian McMahon claiming the award for his performance in 2022.
McMahon said the back-to-back premiership team would visit Moloney with the cup in the coming days.
“He had a bit of an issue with his groin, he must’ve copped a bit of a knock or something because he was peeing blood at quarter time,” he said.
“Not sure what actually happened there, it was a bit bizarre but we’ll get around Ben and make sure he’s all good, and bring him the cup for a bit of a gift.
“He was one of the guys who led the playing group really well the last couple of years, so he really deserves to enjoy the reward for his efforts.”
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‘The best team in the competition’: McMahon expects dynasty
It was a seemingly long time between drinking from the premiership cup for Damian McMahon, but the St Mary’s winger never doubted his side would lift silverware in 2022.
McMahon was awarded the best-on-ground medal for his contributions to the Saints’ second consecutive flags, which were split up by two years of cancelled and disrupted football seasons.
The two-time premiership player said it was a tough road back to the dais after five consecutive grand finals.
“Just thinking about the build-up to the game, we were just so ready for this,” he said.
“During the Covid years, we were the best team in the competition for that period, or right up there, and we just weren’t going to go less than 100 per cent at any point today (Saturday).
“We almost felt like we were robbed of two premierships the past two years, we were really well placed to contend in 2020 and 2021 and we missed out because of Covid.”
The Saints kicked six goals to two in the first half to enter the main break up by 30 points over Leopold, before running out 13.13 (91) to 6.10 (46) victors.
McMahon said the group had spent the past two years focusing on winning a premiership together in 2022.
“Through Covid the boys just grinded away, probably did a lot of work, stuck together and really focused on getting better through those years,” he said.
“We had 14 blokes who played in 2019, plus two others that just missed out, that played today. Everyone wanted to stay together, because everyone loves playing footy with each other and with this group.
“We never really left the club, we never had anyone that we thought was a bit of a flight risk.
“We were really focused on building that culture and chemistry that the really good teams have.
“It’s a bit crazy because I’m 26 years old and I’m one of the oldest, so as a team we’re in a really good position where we’re challenging for flags and we love playing together, and that will hopefully continue for a few more years.”
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Originally published as GFL Grand Final: All the news for St Mary’s 2022 premiership
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