Weekly Times | ONE of country football’s most illustrious playing careers has come to an end.
Robinvale-Euston’s Don Falvo called it a day on Saturday, using the Eagles’ last home game at Robinvale — where he played his entire career — as a farewell.
The Sunraysia league life member finished with 437 senior matches, three premierships and four league best-and-fairests — the first in 1995 and most recently in 2013, the same year he played his 400th senior game in the Sunraysia league, all with Robinvale.
He has been a coach, captain, and 12-time club best-and-fairest who also represented the league on multiple occasions.
Speaking from his nephew’s christening on Sunday, Falvo said the reality of his decision had not sunk in yet, but he admitted to feeling “relieved”.
“I am pretty satisfied with my decision at the moment anyway. Maybe next Friday when I’m not preparing to play it might be a different story,” he said.
Falvo, who turns 40 in December, started playing senior football in 1991 as a 15-year-old, winning a premiership in his first season.
From the Eagles’ line-up against Wentworth on Saturday, which the Kangaroos won by seven goals, the small midfielder said only two of his teammates were born when he started playing seniors, and he had played with the fathers of four teammates.
Falvo said he wanted to finish on Saturday because he did not play his 400th game at Robinvale. That match fell on a weekend the Eagles played away against Merbein.
“For family and friends and the Robinvale community, I thought it would be good to play my last game at home, which just worked out to be Round 15,” he said.
Falvo said the lure of winning a premiership in the twilight of his career had kept him playing on for the past five seasons. But in Round 4 this year, even though his body was still holding up, he realised he was “mentally cooked”.
There was also the reality that his premiership window with the Eagles was “well and truly shut”. Robinvale-Euston — a merged team of Sunraysia league side Robinvale and Millewa league side Euston — has won one match in its debut year.
Next year, the father of three wants to enjoy some time off, and possibly get involved in junior football circles with his seven-year-old son, Samuel. But down the track, Falvo wants to be a non-playing coach, especially for Robinvale.
“Hopefully I can get my dream of coaching a premiership here, that’d be the ultimate,” he said.
