Shepparton News | First-year Tungamah playing coach Jeremy O’Brien caused a stir on Saturday during his acceptance speech after winning the club’s third straight Picola District Football League south-east premiership.
The 58-point victory over Waaia marked the Bears’ second consecutive unbeaten season andO’Brien used the microphone post-match to fire shots at Waaia playing coach Rob Osborne and league president Shane Railton.
‘‘We certainly had our doubters, Shane said we wouldn’t make the grand final and Rob said we bought our success, so thanks for that fellas, we used those comments as motivation,’’ O’Brien said on stage.
The remarks led to Waaia leaving the presentation and left Railton seething.
‘‘It was disgraceful and littered with lies,’’ Railton said.
‘‘There were many people outside of myself who said it was the worst display in football they had seen anywhere. I’ve never seen such unsportsmanlike behaviour, I’m absolutely disgusted.’’
O’Brien stood by his comments after the presentation.
‘‘Shane may have been misquoted, I’m not sure, but Ossie (Osborne) saying we’ve been spending a lot of money so the pressure is on us, that’s certainly not the case,’’ he said.
‘‘I think there were 11 father-sons in today’s side, so that certainly shows it’s mostly home-grown talent.
‘‘If you look at our list today, there’s only four players that would be more than one point if the player point system was introduced.’’
Railton defended his comments from the WeeklyTimes articles O’Brien was citing.
‘‘My comments were — at the time — although favourites, they don’t deserve to be red-hot favourite; I certainly didn’t say they wouldn’t make the grand final, ’’ he said.
‘‘I believe Tungamah should be congratulated for developing their own youth because our strength as a league is based on our juniors.
‘‘Up until the last 10 minutes it was a fantastic year and the incident will be investigated by the board.’’
Osborne did not to buy into O’Brien’s remarks and chose not to comment.
By Eammon Tiernan
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