FOR much of last year, the Rokewood-Corindhap Football Club appeared to be on the cusp of a premiership. The Grasshoppers charged through the home-and-away matches without a loss and as the season reached its climax they were hot favourites to win the Lexton Plains league flag. But the finals were an unmitigated disaster. They suffered consecutive defeats at the hands of Carngham-Linton and Skipton and crashed out of contention in straight sets.
"We've gone over it a few times and we still can't work out why it happened," Rokewood-Corindhap's 23-year-old president, Josh Terry, said last week. "It was pretty demoralising for the players and all the supporters. We were having a great year and everyone was really good mates. It was pretty hard to take."
To the club's credit, it has risen again. After seven rounds it sits in second place on the ladder, with a 6-1 win-loss record. Now, as the Grasshoppers nervously eye another finals campaign, they are hoping some recently acquired expertise can prevent a second bout of choking.
Not only is Rokewood-Corindhap's rookie coach Tom Mullane-Grant a most impressive footballer, he recently completed a four-year degree in psychology at Ballarat University. If anyone can cure the Grasshoppers' problems, Mullane-Grant seems up to the challenge.
Based amid grazing and cropping farms 43 kilometres south of Ballarat, Rokewood-Corindhap won its most recent flag in 2002.
Since then it has regularly made the finals, only to lose form during the vital part of the season, a situation which reached its nadir nine months ago.
At that time, despite the failure to make the grand final, Rokewood-Corindhap's committee had no plans for mass changes. But when senior coach James McNamee decided to return to Dunolly, then-president Darren Grenfell sought new blood. He immediately targeted Mullane-Grant, a key forward from Bannockburn, near Geelong.
"Earlier in the year we'd played a practice match against them and out of their 17 goals I think Tommy kicked about 12," Grenfell said. "I'd had a bit of a chat to him after that game, so as soon as James left, I gave him a call. He was keen to coach and we managed to sign him within two weeks of James pulling the pin."
A close friend of McNamee, Mullane-Grant, who lives on the outskirts of Ballarat, knew all about Rokewood-Corindhap's finals failure. And he proved even more qualified for the job than Grenfell realised.
"I actually did my honours in psychology last year and did my 10,000-word thesis on anxiety and choking in sport," Mullane-Grant said before last weekend's game against Illabarook. "It was mainly to do with goalkicking, but with that work behind me I had a few strategies in mind."
"We knew about that," Grenfell chuckled. "I thought he might be handy to work with those boys and weave a bit of magic. I'll know in September if it's worked or not, I suppose."
Boosted by the change at the top and some smart recruiting, the Grasshoppers are again among the Lexton league's premiership contenders. "We don't speak about last year at training any more," Grenfell said. "It just doesn't come up. We've had a big turnover of players, a new direction. There's lots of young boys playing so they're not burdened by it."
On the field, Mullane-Grant, who describes himself as a "24-year-old veteran", has proved a revelation. Lining up at full-forward, he has so far booted 57 goals, including hauls of 11 against Lexton in round three and Natte Bealiba in round five. Eight days ago, he snagged seven majors in an 84-point thumping of Illabarook.
As a teenager, Mullane-Grant's formidable talent took him all the way to the Geelong Falcons. In 2001 he played a few games in a star-studded Falcons line-up, which contained Gary Ablett, Luke Hodge and Jimmy Bartel.
Mullane-Grant was then a dashing back pocket. Nowadays he rarely strays outside the forward 50. Against Illabarook he jogged onto the ground wearing long sleeves, a knee brace and shaggy hair.
"The first time I saw him, I thought he was an old bloke," joked Grenfell, as Mullane-Grant shuffled towards a contest. "He doesn't look like a footballer, he doesn't move like a footballer. But he has blokes jumping over him all day and he just keeps taking marks."
True to form, as the temperature dropped towards single figures, Mullane-Grant warmed to the task. His research into goalkicking seemed to have paid off, with his shots sailing right through the middle. When the ball hit the ground, the Rokewood-Corindhap supporters marvelled at his uncanny ability to make something from nothing.
The highlight came in the final quarter, when Mullane-Grant dived for a mark on the edge of the goal square. He spilled the ball when he hit the turf, before calmly grabbing the red leather and snapping it over his shoulder for a goal, while still lying on the ground. A man standing not far from the action turned to his mate and remarked, "he's a freak".
With Rokewood-Corindhap enjoying a league bye for the Queen's Birthday long weekend, Mullane-Grant will today test his skills at representative level for the VCFL district state team against the best of the lower divisions of Melbourne's amateur competition.
Off the field, he has also won admirers at his new club. "He knows every one of the junior kids by first name," marvelled vice-president Denis Banks. "A lot of senior coaches don't have that interaction with the juniors."
He'll need all his communication skills when the Grasshoppers' try to break Carngham-Linton and Skipton's stranglehold on the league's silverware, while confronting their past demons.
"I'm actually looking forward to that challenge of addressing the boys about the choking issue because I've done so much research on it," Mullane-Grant said. "I feel so comfortable looking at the area of anxiety and why we feel nerves. I'm quite content about dealing with it."
Article first appeared The Sunday Age,
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