Tony Giardina knew he'd accepted a big challenge when he took on the coaching job at Boolarra in late 2008. The Demons' senior side had won only 12 games in its previous three seasons, and their playing list was largely devoid of experienced, big-bodied campaigners.
But Giardina could never have predicted just how great the challenge of turning the club around would soon become. In late January 2009, a week before Black Saturday, a bushfire tore through the Strzelecki Ranges in central Gippsland, threatening a number of towns including Boolarra. "The fires virtually went right around the football oval," Giardina recalls.
By the time it was extinguished, the blaze had burned more than 6,000 hectares of land and destroyed 29 homes. Not surprisingly, it diverted the locals' focus away from sport.
Down at the footy club, Giardina found himself overseeing training sessions involving just a handful of players. Making matters worse, the heatwave that baked Victoria in late January and early February of '09 had made the local oval unusable.
"There were eight blokes on the track, if that. I thought, 'If we don't do something, the club's going to fold'. But we talked about it and started working hard to make sure it didn't happen."
After the AFL sent some turf experts to Boolarra to help repair the oval, the club managed to field both a senior and reserves team in 2009, but they won only two games between them.
Right now, however, the club is in a far different position. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Giardina and the club's passionate committee members, Boolarra's senior team will next month run out in a final for the first time since 2002.
"The whole community is up and excited," Giardina says. "The social life around the club has always been really good, but it's even better this year. The gates are up, the canteen and bar sales are up. Everyone's already talking about finals, although I'm trying to keep a lid on it."
Boolarra is a town of around 520 people, located 25kms south of Morwell and 165kms east of Melbourne. The local football club was founded in 1905 and three decades later was a founding member of the Mid Gippsland league. In the early days of the MGFL, Boolarra took on rivals like Morwell Seconds, Morwell Bridge, Yallourn Imperials and Brown Coal Mine (it lost the league's first grand final to Morwell Seconds).
The Demons, who have won only four senior premierships in their 106-year history, enjoyed their greatest period of success in the 1950s when they broke the domination of Hazelwood (a club that now plays in the North Gippsland league under the name Churchill) by winning the 1955 and '58 flags.
But after those heady days, Boolarra failed to even make the finals again until 1995. In 1997 the Demons scaped into the top five, then surged right through the finals, toppling hot favourite Newborough in the grand final.
Boolarra's only finals appearance since its '97 flag was in 2002; in most other years it struggled to win four or five games and regularly finished in the bottom three on the ladder.
"The club's been a very good social club through that time," Boolarra president Russell "Rusty" McGlade says. "People still came out and supported us whether the result was win, lose or draw. But people are enjoying their footy and netball a bit more this year. It's better than coming down to see us getting flogged every week. And as long as the town's happy, and everyone's getting a game, that's all I'm worried about."
The Demons' current revival began when they approached Giardina, who had spent many years playing and coaching at Boolarra's nearby rival Mirboo North.
"I've always thought that you never say no to anyone," the 44-year-old says. "You always sit down and have a chat because you never know what will come of it. They rang me twice and they wanted to give me the job. I thought, 'I love coaching, I love football, I love building teams up and I love a challenge. I'll take it on'.
Giardina relied on a bunch of local youngsters to represent the club in his first year at the helm, and the senior side, which had an average age of 19, took some fearful beatings. Yet the coach saw plenty of improvement, even if it wasn't reflected on the scoreboard.
"It was really a matter of changing the attitude around the place. We had to start getting the boys to training on a regular basis and get them to believe they could succeed if they worked hard."
Boolarra's seniors won four games in 2010, but expectations were much higher this year after an off-season recruiting campaign netted a number of talented players.
"We've tried to mainly bring Boolarra boys back or recruit blokes from around the area whose fathers or grandfathers played for Boolarra," Giardina says.
Among the lads enticed to return to the club was Matt Dyer, who won two league best-and-fairest awards in the Boolarra juniors before heading off to the big smoke. Dyer had spent a number of seasons with St Mary's in the Geelong league, and was a member of the Saints' 2008 premiership team.
Although he still lives in Geelong, Dyer doesn't only head across to Gippsland on Saturdays for matches. Rather, he makes the 240km trip to Boolarra each Thursday afternoon, so he can train with his new teammates. His commitment is an example of the change in attitude around the club. "We get 42 or 43 blokes running round on a Thursday night," Giardina states proudly.
The Demons' biggest recruiting coup came a month ago, just before clearances closed, when they lured much-travelled centreman Jason "Jock" Macfarlane across from Morwell. A premiership player in the Ovens and Murray league with Corowa-Rutherglen, Macfarlane's football resume also includes coaching stints at Benalla and Myrtleford.
Last weekend, he was best on ground when Boolarra almost toppled Trafalgar. The Demons had led by 14 points midway through the final quarter, but they were overrun in the dying stages and lost by five.
"While we were devastated, I said to the boys, the committee and the supporters: 'Two years ago, that same side beat us by 200 points'," Giardina explains. "We've come a long way."
If Boolarra is to complete its resurrection by making the grand final, it desperately needs to stay in the top three. Yesterday, the Demons tried to clear another hurdle when they took on fifth-placed Newborough, and they'll face another tough clash in their final home-and-away game against fourth-placed Yallourn-Yallourn North.
"There will be a few nerves from guys who haven't played finals footy before," Giardina says. "That's why we're fighting hard to keep that double-chance. If we can do that we'll be right in the hunt for the premiership."
By Adam McNicol
Article first appeared the Sunday Age July 31, 2011
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