South West District: Cavendish looking to end long flag drought
Cavendish football club is chasing a fairytale flag in this Saturday’s South West District league grand final. Here’s their inspiring backstory.
Cavendish has made the meteoric climb from battling club, which won only one match in two seasons before Covid, to favourites heading into the first South West District league grand final post-Covid on Saturday.
The club was winless in 2018 and at “rock bottom”, according to the coach Clinton Thomas, who took over the following year, hellbent on turning its fortunes around.
The first team into the grand final where it will meet Dartmoor on Saturday, Cavendish has also become a destination club.
In an era when clubs in many leagues across the state are battling for numbers in all grades, Cavendish is fielding junior teams for the first time in decades in the Greater South West junior league.
“We were at rock bottom and there were some genuine questions about the future of the club,” Thomas said.
“I think it has been 40 years since we’ve had under-17s.
“Now we’ve got under-14, under-17 teams and our under-11s lost one game this year.
“Yes, the seniors are doing well, but in my time as coach here the biggest success has been this incredibly strong junior system that is now becoming a feeder system.
“We’ve pulled so many kids who had been lost to footy and are back playing again.
“In the under-11s, half those kids dropped out of Auskick not so long ago.”
The senior team is also largely local, with just six players not living in the Cavendish area.
Four of the six live in nearby Hamilton while Kyle Hendy travels the longest distance to play from near Stawell.
Thomas said the turnaround began with some tough conversations soon after he became coach.
“We made sure we had a unified direction on where we wanted to go,” he said.
“Everything was centred around building a strong culture.
“The players had 100 per cent ownership over that.
“They are just a fantastic group of blokes.
“They’re part of the community. A lot of them are farming based.
“We’ve also got an impressive group of 19, 20, 21-year-olds coming through.”
Thomas is a non-playing coach and retired as a player in 2006 after a career that included being part of the 2001 Hamilton Imperials premiership side.
Thomas’ brother Brad also plays for Cavendish after joining the club from Hampden league team Hamilton and other playing and coaching stints with Stawell, Port Fairy and Tyntynder.
Cavendish is in a long premiership drought at senior level with the club not winning a premiership since going back-to-back in 1992-93 under coaches Rod McGrath and Alan Herring.
Ross McNaughton has played the majority of his career at Cavendish including the disastrous 2018 winless season.
“It’s been a huge turnaround,” he said.
“The wheel can turn quickly in country footy, but a lot of things have got to go right.
“You also need the right people in the right places prepared to drive it.”
The Covid interruptions of the past two years were a challenge, but one way the Cavendish players remained engaged was taking part in virtual fitness challenges with Dunkeld, Glenthompson and Taylors Lakes.
Cavendish’s build-up to the grand final began at the venue chosen for the premiership deciding match, Heywood, on Saturday.
“The big thing for us has been being smart on how we’ve managed our list,” Thomas said.
“We know on any given day if we play our best footy we’ve got the ability to beat any of the finals teams.
“But we also know if we’re off the mark by 10 per cent anyone of those teams have the ability to beat us.”
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