DURING his final season at the helm of Melbourne, Neale Daniher lamented a galling loss to the Kangaroos by telling reporters: "Footy sucks sometimes."
After what has transpired in the Geelong league in recent weeks, the people involved with the Leopold footy club are no doubt thinking along the same lines.
This year, the Lions' senior team has lost five games by four points or less. If it had won even three of those matches, it would be entrenched in the top five. Instead, what shaped as a breakout year for Leopold's youthful line-up has become a season of lost opportunities.
"We've got a really young list and we've probably averaged only two or three players aged over 25 in our side most weeks," Leopold coach Aaron Greaves explained last weekend. "We've only got two guys that have played over 100 games of footy. It's not that we've choked or don't know how to win. It's just young guys making bad decisions at crucial times."
But the good folk of Leopold are not getting too down on themselves or their team. With their sights set on becoming the most powerful club on the Bellarine Peninsula, they are adamant their time at the top is not too far away.
Organised footy has been played in the Leopold area since the 1920s, but the club wasn't formed until 1955, when local landholder Harry Howard granted permission for matches to be played in his paddock.
It took the Lions 24 years to win their first premiership, which came when they defeated Newcomb to win the 1979 Bellarine league flag. And by the time the club won its second premiership with a five-goal win over Anglesea in the 1990 grand final, Leopold's administrators were eyeing off some tougher competition. In late 1991, they were permitted to enter to the powerful Geelong league.
"We had a lot of GFL clubs chasing our good players and it was my policy to let them go to play a higher standard of footy," recalled Tony Graham, a former Leopold player, coach and president, whose son Ben - the former Geelong star and now Arizona Cardinals punter - is the club's greatest export.
"When we realised we had some really good kids coming through, we decided it was time to get in there ourselves, so we could keep those young blokes playing at home."
But since making their GFL debut in 1992, it's been a tough slog for the Lions. While they qualified for the finals in 1997, '98 and '99, under the coaching of former Geelong player Russell Merriman, they have more often occupied a rung closer to the bottom of the ladder.
These days, however, there's an expectation that things are about to get a whole lot better. Many of the Lions' large band of followers believe the appointment of Greaves, in late 2007, will prove to be a key decision.
A talent manager at the Victorian Institute of Sport, the 32-year-old is attempting to engineer a revival built on youth and professionalism.
"We've really turned the list over," said Greaves, who played a few games for the Cats in the VFL and later coached St Joseph's to a Geelong league grand final. "We've spent two years recruiting guys who are aged between 18 and 25. We've put a lot time into their development and we're very structured with our teaching. We just make sure we instil the right values and behaviours in the club.
"On the field, we haven't got a lot of height, so we try and play a very fast and exciting brand of footy."
Greaves held down centre half-forward for Leopold during 2008 and '09, before injuries and work commitments forced him to retire as a player at the end of last year. But he happily directed traffic from the sidelines as his team began this season by winning eight of its first 11 games. If not for a two-point loss to St Joseph's in round four and a three-point defeat at the hands of St Mary's in round seven, the Lions would have already been certain finalists.
The real dramas began in round 12, when they fronted up against St Joseph's for the second time and suffered another two-point loss, despite having enjoyed a handy lead deep in the final quarter.
A week later, Leopold had the chance to get its season back on track when it travelled to lowly St Albans. Five goals down at the last break, the Lions fought back bravely, but were four points short at the finish. Having dropped out of the top five, Leopold simply had to win when it hosted seventh-placed Newtown & Chilwell last weekend. Under the gaze of the 1990 premiership players, who were enjoying a reunion, the Lions began nervously and scores were level at the last change.
"This is our season. It's on the line here," said Leopold vice-president David Dowd, as a large huddle of people watched Greaves address his men.
The Lions' supporters were roaring soon after, when a couple of quick goals handed them what appeared to be a match-winning lead. With four minutes to go, they were still 10 points up.
There were a few groans when Newtown & Chilwell narrowed the margin to four points, although no one was prepared for what happened next. The visitors won the ball in the middle of the ground and raced it into their forward line, where shaven-headed onballer Damian Harrington took a mark close to the boundary, about 40 metres from goal.
With so much riding on his kick, Harrington coolly sized up the target then steered the Sherrin straight through the big sticks. When the siren sounded a minute later, the Lions had been beaten by two points.
However, as the Leopold players trudged from the field, fans began gathering in the club's social rooms, where the video of the 1990 grand final had a few minutes to run. Soon there were smiles, cheers and laughter as the grainy footage showed Lions' supporters jumping the fence and streaming onto the Drysdale oval to begin their celebrations.
"That was a great day and it will happen again," said Graham, pointing to housing developments that will see Leopold's population increase from 9000 to 15,000 in the next decade.
"Back in 1990 the club only had two junior teams. Now we have 18. We'll be right."
By Adam McNicol
Article first appeared The Sunday Age, August 1, 2010
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