Shepp News |
There’s a saying that seems as old as sport itself that it is not the winning or losing, but how you play the game that counts. Well, that was never truer than on Saturday.
It is also often said by those who think too much importance is placed on sport that football is ‘‘just’’ a game. People chasing a ball around a paddock.
But in our region football (and netball) is more than that. Much more. It is the glue that binds us, that brings different communities together, a common language.
And seldom can people have been brought together the way they were on Saturday, when at least three clubs took to various fields under the most trying of circumstances — having to play while mourning the passing of a team-mate.
Yet Eamonn ‘‘Euwie’’ O’Connor was more than just a team-mate. As his family pointed out after his tragic death last week, the 19-year-old was a true mate. He would travel the countryside to catch up with his mates. He was also a damn good footballer.
And Euwie touched many people in his all-too-short life. Especially at football clubs. That’s why Seymour, Avenel, Assumption College and the Northern Blues among others all paid tribute to him by taking to the field with black armbands on Saturday and why Tabilk juniors honoured one of their own the next day.
But Saturday was also the day dozens of other people reached deep into themselves and found what they were made of.
And the answer was the strongest stuff. For Saturday was a day like few others. It was a day when there were feats of extraordinary courage.
This wasn’t the courage you can normally see, though you will if you know what you are looking for. It was that which every person hopes they have inside them, but which hopefully never has to be put to the test.
It was seen at the Mooroopna Recreation Reserve, when players from Seymour visited on a fine but cold day.
But it would be fair to say that most, if not all, of these players would rather not have been there. For barely six days earlier Euwie lost his life in a fall from a building at Mt Hotham.
Before the senior football game at Mooroopna, there was a minute’s silence in his honour. Then, the first signs of what was to come. Euwie’s cousin Brendan Liddell took the Seymour Lions into a huddle and reminded them why they were there.
There were reminders on the backs of their hands, a simple ‘‘E’’ that told them when the going got tough who they were there for. Why the hurt was worth it. And the Liddell family personified it more than most.
In an extremely trying week, Brendan took to the field with a niggle. But he wasn’t going to let his cousin down. In fact, he was Seymour’s best player on the day.
Next to that huddle lurked his brother Gerard, out of action with injury. That didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to miss the pep talk — or the game — either. Mum Maureen and dad Greg are permanent fixtures at Seymour games, despite now living in Shepparton, and they could have been excused for giving this one a miss. Yet no. They knew what their nephew would have wanted.
Every Seymour player on the field covered themselves in glory just by being there. And then some.
What about Hugh Robertson, an Assumption College schoolmate of Euwie’s who spoke so well at his funeral on Monday — the pair made their senior debut for Seymour together in 2011 — and who seemed to have his mate’s spirit on his shoulder as he kicked three goals, including one brilliant effort on the run.
Or Xavier McMahon. A leader in the truest sense of the word. It didn’t matter how many times Mooroopna knocked his side — or himself against a much bigger opponent — down, he got back up again, screaming encouragement and competing at every contest.
He and his brother James have felt the pain of a devastating family death, but they know how Euwie and other mates — and our community — rallied to them in their time of need.
Nick Dundon, when the game appeared lost, finding the energy and inspiration to run 80
The Freeman brothers giving it everything they had and never taking a backward step against much bigger men.
Jason Cole and Harry Wheeler — two players from the Mangalore and Avenel areas — kicking inspirational goals to put their side in front at different times. The former injured his collarbone during the game and was in a sling afterwards but it made little difference.
Courage was there on the sidelines — apart from Gerard Liddell, skipper Brent Colbert, Ash Walsh and Matt O’Keefe could have cried off attending due to injury, but they didn’t. You sense how much this meant to all of them.
Coach Shane Robertson and assistant Peter O’Keefe — two of the hardest men to have played or still in the game — remarked that it was the gutsiest effort they had ever seen. And this courage not from megastars who earn big bucks, but from players for whom many grandstand experts forget the game is largely a recreation. The real grassroots, the people who keep this great game alive.
After the game, the Seymour room was awash with emotion, as players and others let out what had been pent up or controlled during the game.
Players and supporters broke down and wept. It is tempting to say it might be because they felt they let Euwie down by not winning the game.
But they didn’t. Not one of them. Regardless of the devastating five-point defeat, everyone in the red and blue was a winner.
Because you did everyone proud, not the least yourselves. But most importantly you did, and played, as Euwie would have, and how he would have wanted. And you can’t ask for any more than that.
■
Those words, from young Oscar Loweke, melted the hardest of hearts on Monday.
They were spoken at the St Mary’s multi-purpose hall, where about 1000 mourners gathered to farewell Oscar’s uncle, Eamonn O’Connor.
The Mangalore 19-year-old died after falling from the fifth story of a building at Mt Hotham on June 10.
His death sparked an outpouring of grief across the region and beyond for the popular footballer.
But at Monday’s funeral, while the mood was still sombre, family and friends gathered to remember a young man who lived life to the full, whose mates meant the world to him and who had a love of football for as long as anyone could remember.
Eamonn’s brothers, Flynn and Emmett and sister (and godmother) Erin also spoke, doing as well as they could to control their emotions.
The mood was lightened when a video screened featuring Eamonn doing a Flashdance routine at Assumption College.
His love of dancing and op-shop clothing was a recurring theme among the speakers.
Following the service, Eamonn was buried at Avenel.
