Weekly Times | SMYTHESDALE Football Club has ended a five-year losing streak in the Central Highlands Football League.
Five years to the day since it beat Skipton in Round 2, 2011 — their one and only win in the league before yesterday — the Bulldogs once again triumphed against the Emus, 9.9 (63) to 6.8 (44).
The club joined the Central Highlands league as Illabarook for the 2011 season after the Lexton Plains league was disbanded, and changed its name ahead of the 2014 season.
Smythesdale made headlines last year when it lost to Gordon by 429 points.
Coach Stephen Frys was emotional and ecstatic after yesterday’s win.
“I don’t know many footy clubs who have been as low as we have in the last few years,” he said.
“To slowly build it up and get a group of guys who aren’t superstars, they just wanted to do the hard work and work as a team, and get a little bit of reward for it is just fantastic.”
Club president Dave Tuohy said it felt awesome to win but the club still had work to do.
“We’re really excited that we’ve got our first win on the board in such a long time, but we’re under no illusions that the rest of the year is going to be tough and we’ve got a lot of hard work to do,” he said.
“It will be a good night tonight, there’s no doubt about that, but it will be business as usual come Tuesday.”
● SEA Lake-Nandaly was unable to clinch a win in its first North Central league outing yesterday, losing to Birchip-Watchem by 11 points.
The Tigers joined the league after its former competition, the Mallee league, was disbanded at the end of last season.
Ouyen United, an amalgamation of two Mallee clubs Ouyen United and Walpeup-Underbool, lost its first outing in the Sunraysia league yesterday by six goals to South Mildura.
● THE longest winning streak in country Victorian football remains intact after Navarre defeated Carisbrook yesterday.
The Grasshoppers have now won 42 games in a row after taking the four points from the Maryborough Castlemaine District league grand final rematch yesterday by 34 points.
Royal Park was another Round 1 winner in the league by two goals against Dunolly.
● ROCHESTER won a thriller against rival Echuca in the second round of the Goulburn Valley Football League yesterday.
The Tigers came from seven points behind at half-time to lead by five goals at three-quarter time and ran out five-point winners.
Last season’s wooden spooner Tatura clinched its second win of the season by 17 points against Euroa.