Casterton-Sandford: Western Border league club finishes minor premier for first time

IT HAS been almost three decades since Casterton won a premiership, while Sandford football supporters have waited half a century.

IT HAS been almost three decades since Casterton won a premiership, while Sandford football supporters have waited half a century.

But five years after the two clubs merged, Casterton-Sandford is finding renewed success and is in its best position ever to launch a finals campaign.

Casterton-Sandford has finished on top of the Western Border Football League ladder for the first time since it formed in December 2013.

“It’s a good reward for the club,” coach Hamish Jarrad said.

“It’s also a good reward for the playing group, because we’ve had a lot of ex-local blokes commit to travelling back home this year.

“For those blokes to get the reward and finish on top after the home-and-away season was good for the group.”

When Casterton and Sandford, which had been in the South West District league, merged, the two clubs had just one premiership between them since 1970.

Casterton won a premiership in 1990 in the Western Border league, while Sandford’s last premiership was in 1968 in the Portland-Port Fairy league.

The club is now based at Casterton, where it will host this weekend’s first semi-final

It has been a year of change for Casterton, population 1668, with its last bank closing recently.

But Jarrad said “the saying goes if the footy club is going well, the town is going well”.

“We have a massive supporter base at the footy club and it is the local hub of the community so all the families in the district and town have kids in the juniors,” he said.

“There aren’t many people in the district that aren’t involved in some way or another.

“It is really disappointing that the bank’s closed, but the farming community is going through a good phase at the moment with great lamb prices so the vibe in the district is quite positive.”

Casterton-Sandford held top spot on the ladder despite losing its last game on Saturday. Jarrad said the loss, the team’s third for the year, would not affect them.

“We’ve had a pretty tough run with injuries this year,” he said.

“We’ve had 38 players play senior footy and we've had key injuries to key players.

“For us to have a really hard battle in the last game, we didn't play great footy but we had a good second half which gives us momentum going into finals.”