Ovens and Murray: Wangaratta holds on for premiership glory
Wangaratta won its second flag from four recent grand final appearances, but it could easily have been a different story. See all the pictures.
Wangaratta walked the fine line between pleasure and pain when it held on for a thrilling three-point win against Yarrawonga in the Ovens and Murray league grand final at Lavington on Sunday.
Beaten in the last two grand finals on its home ground in 2018-19, Wangaratta risked being labelled underachievers with another grand final loss.
But the prospect of defeat loomed large when Yarrawonga small forward Jesse Koopman lined up from near 50m for a late goal.
His shot narrowly missed to the right and Wangaratta, which had led by 26 points early in the final term, held on in the closest O&M grand final played since Lavington’s famous after-the-siren flag in 2005.
As was the case 17 years ago, the losing team kicked more goals than the victors with Wangaratta the dominant team in the first half, but couldn’t deliver the knockout blow.
“We just didn’t take our chances in front of goal in the first half,” Wangaratta coach Ben Reid said.
“If we did that we could have made it a lot easier for ourselves.
“(Yarrawonga) are a hell of a team, and a hell of a football club.
“We’re just happy we came out on the right side of the ledger.”
Wangaratta led 5.8 to 3.0 at halftime and defender Michael Bordignon had kept star Yarrawonga forward Leigh Williams at the long break before he lifted with four second-half goals that had a big say in his team’s fightback.
Twice during the third term Yarrawonga led on the back of a five goals-to-three quarter sparked by Willie Wheeler in the centre and the run and dash of brothers Will and Jack
Sexton, whose father Damian played in Yarrawonga’s 1989 premiership on the same ground in 1989.
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Wangaratta’s Callum Moore won the Did Simpson Medal for his four-goal performance and also being thrown into the ruck when Yarrawonga was on the charge.
Chris Knowles had been heroic in the ruck for Wangaratta for most of the match as had Luke Saunders and Jackson Clarke up the ground.
Joe Richards, who had been tracked closely most of the game by Jack Forge, slipped free in a dynamic start to the final term by Wangaratta.
Wangaratta went five points up at three-quarter time to 23 points up in the blink of an eye with a brilliant goal from Richards in the forward pocket part of the early onslaught.
Daniel Sharrock hit the post at the five mark, which could have sealed the flag a lot earlier.
Richards played in Wangaratta’s last flag in 2017 and also played in the two losing ones.
“You don’t want to feel like that again. They were a shocking two years,” he said.
Wangaratta veteran Daine Porter became a four-time premiership player in a career spanning more than 300 matches.
The latest premiership came in a year when Porter’s mum and lifelong Wangaratta supporter, Lynne, died.
Yarrawonga was brave in defeat with two of its best players, Michael Gibbons and Harry Wheeler, injured earlier in the finals series.
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