It was great to have some country footy back this weekend in Victoria after the recent Covid-19 restrictions were lifted enough for regional Victorian leagues to contemplate a return to their 2021 season.
Unfortunately several leagues such as the Ballarat FNL, Geelong & District FNL, MPNFL and West Gippsland FNL were unable to entertain this option due to having clubs located in Greater Melbourne where community sport is still not available for adults. Hopefully a further easing of restrictions this week leads to a return next weekend.
Being the Queen’s Birthday long weekend, several leagues already had byes in place for season 2021 and resisted the temptation to play in an attempt to make up rounds due to the short time frame from Wednesday’s easing of restrictions and also the cap of 150 people at venues meaning it was not financially viable for some leagues to try and catch up.
However, that didn’t stop 9 leagues from getting back into action, with border based leagues such as the Murray FNL, Ovens & Murray FNL, Picola and District FNL and Sunraysia FNL getting creative and playing all their games for this weekends round at the home grounds of their NSW based clubs, thus allowing normal sized crowds to attend. Given the 25km travel restrictions in place for those in Greater Melbourne, several clubs had challenges at the selection table as many of their regular players were unable to travel to play.
In the Ovens and Murray FNL alone, a full sized team of 22 Melbourne based players were omitted from the senior teams for this round of matches, accounting for almost ½ of the 50 changes made by Ovens & Murray clubs.
When it came to the action, it was the Wimmera FNL who had the close ones this weekend with 2 of their 4 round 8 games decided by 4 points, seeing the Horsham Saints FNC and Warrack Eagles FNC holding off the Southern Mallee Giants and Nhill respectively. The same however couldn’t be said for the game in the Bendigo FNL between Strathfielsdaye and Castlemaine which saw Strathfielsdaye kick 33.15-213 whilst holding Castlemaine scoreless for the day.
As good as this 213 point win was, it was surpassed for the biggest score and winning margin from the weekend by Strathmerton FNC who piled on an amazing 15.2 in the first quarter of their Picola and District FNL game against Blighty FNC who managed just the solitary goal for the term. At the end of the day Strathmerton FNC ended up 45.12-282 to Blighty FNC’s 1.1 7, winners by a massive 275 points and becoming the third highest score and winning margin for the season thus far.
Both games mentioned above also gave us the big bags of goals for the round with Strathfieldsaye forward Lachlan Sharp booting 12 and 31 of Strathmerton’s 45 goals shared between Tim Looby (11) and Zack-Harie Betson and Marcus McMillan who kicked 10 each themselves. Given not many leagues have returned to play, there was not much movement on the Top 20 goal kickers list, which sees White Hill FNC’s Jed Lamb leading the way with 54, followed by Violet Town FNC’s Josh Mellington on 48 and Samuel Dunstan from Hepburn FNC in the Central Highlands FNL in third place with 46 goals.
