Gippsland: Traralgon wins first flag since 2015

Traralgon had not beaten Leongatha in its last 10 meetings, but all that changed on the biggest stage. See how the upset folded.

Traralgon rediscovered the premiership-winning formula to upset Leongatha’s pursuit of a historic third successive Gippsland league flag with a 25-point victory in the grand final at Morwell on Saturday.

Traralgon had lost its last 10 encounters to Leongatha, but repeated the result of the 2015 grand final when they beat the Parrots for the premiership.

Written off at the start of the season, Traralgon went down a homegrown player path under first-year coach Troy Hamilton and was rewarded with the ultimate prize.

Scores were level early in the last quarter before the youngest player on the ground, 16-year-old Marlon Neocleous, turned around his opponent, sent a long, perfectly placed pass to teammate Sam Hallyburton, who then found the oldest player on the ground, 35-year-old veteran forward Dan McKenna, in the square.

McKenna kicked truly for the second time in three minutes to finally snap the Leongatha resistance to open a 12-point lead.

Traralgon's Harvey Neocleous marks in front of Leongatha's Cade Maskell in the grand final. Picture: Warren ‘Wazshots’ Leyden

Neocleous and older brother Harvey kicked the final two goals to send Traralgon into celebration mode.

“The direction we took was not always planned, but we always wanted to be Traralgon-based because there are that many Traralgon kids out there playing at different clubs,” Hamilton said.

“(Leongatha) have been the benchmark and some of the things they’ve done in the last few years we’ve tried to emulate.

“They pull their senior and development teams together really well.

“Hopefully we can become a benchmark now ourselves.”

Traralgon beat Leongatha in the Gippsland league grand final. Picture: Warren ‘Wazshots’ Leyden

Traralgon held Leongatha to only seven goals with defenders Tye Hourigan and Tristen Waack taking nine marks across halfback in the final quarter.

Luis D’Angelo won the Stan Aitken Medal for best-on-ground and teammate Max Jacobsen waged a great battle in the ruck with Leongatha man mountain Ben Willis.

“The second quarter we started to turn it on,” Hamilton said.

“We felt good at halftime, but you know it’s going to be 120 minutes of effort.

“We knew they would come in the third quarter, but we were able to keep our nerve.”

Traralgon's Marlon Neocleous is chased down by Leongatha's Tom Marriott in the grand final. Warren ‘Wazshots’ Leyden

McKenna, who finished with three goals, only came into the team in the second half of the season when Traralgon’s defensive stocks were hit by injury.

Leongatha suffered a blow in the lead-up to the grand final when Jake Vanderpleight couldn’t take his place in the team due to injury and forward Jack Ginnane was out of the match in the second term when he went down with a quad injury.