Bendigo Advertiser | After 38 long years and more than 650 games since it last tasted success, North Bendigo is finally celebrating a premiership.
But if you weren’t among the crowd that paid a record gate of $59,000 for Saturday’s cracking Heathcote District Football League grand final at Huntly, you’d probably have a hard time believing the Bulldogs beat Leitchville-Gunbower.
Firstly, Bulldogs’ star forwards Sam Barnes and Brady Herdman were held to just three goals between them – all off the boot of Barnes.
Secondly, the Bulldogs were wounded early after Ash Craig was taken off the ground on a stretcher and to hospital after he was knocked out in a bump from the Bombers’ Joel Helman.
Soon after another Bulldog went down when Shaun Kellow was forced from the ground with broken ribs, although, he did return in the third quarter.
Thirdly, the Bombers – who generated nine more inside-50s (52-43) - held the usually free-scoring North Bendigo goalless for 35 minutes. The Bulldogs didn’t kick a goal from the 26-minute mark of the first quarter to the seven-minute mark of the third term.
And lastly, with the game in the balance at three quarter-time – the Bulldogs led at that stage by eight points – most would have expected the Bombers with their fresher legs and and running game well suited to the big Huntly ground would finish the stronger.
But it was the desperate Bulldogs who saluted in what will go down as one of the great HDFL grand finals.
The ground was flooded with a sea of blue, white and red as the siren sounded at 5.03pm, signalling a 10.13 (73) to 8.15 (63) win over the Bombers and the end of one of the region’s longest premiership droughts.
For long-time stalwarts of the Bulldogs, like Keith Robertson, who had four grandsons involved in the grand final, there has been plenty of heartache since the club’s previous – no longer its last – flag in 1977.
Since the 1977 triumph, the Bulldogs had lost five grand finals, including two of the previous three, while there was also a preliminary final defeat in 2013.
The flag was captained by Jordan Ford. His dad, Garry, played in not only the 1977 flag in the Golden City Football League, but the under-18 premiership the same day.
Like the seniors, the Bulldogs also hadn’t won an under-age flag since 1977, but they also broke that 38-year premiership drought on Saturday with a 68-point smashing of White Hills in the under-17s.
There was a father-son combination in the flag in co-coach Neville Massina – who has links with the Bulldogs going back to the 1970s – and Elliott Massina.
And it seemed fellow co-coach Rob Bennett – a life-long Bulldog who had been involved in three grand final losses as a player and coach - was almost in a state of disbelief post-match with the premiership medal he had been craving for so long finally around his neck.
No doubt those previously involved at the defunct Bendigo Gold would have had a smile on their faces as well after one of their former players of 2013 – North Bendigo ruckman Troy Kelm – won the best on ground medal.
While for the trio of Herdman, Barnes and Jaran McKay, that’s now five flags in a row after winning the past four in the North Central league with Wedderburn.
