Is this official yet?
Only three left from last year sounds dire. If it happens, the travel factor suits us too. Bloody Mitcham.

Nothing in concrete yet, but its only a matter of time.
Just for those who aren't fully aware, below is a list of our GF team, those highlighted in RED have not returned this year.

2.B. Aldridge - retired?
44 T. Aloisi - Sedan
28 M. Bates
18 J. Clark-Rantasa - Gepps?
7 J. Clark-Rantasa -Gepps?
11 S. Cosenza
19 S. Craven
15 B. Gatto - Eastern Park
14 D. Grgurovic
13 A. Harvey - Padthaway (or somewhere around there)
29 A. Hennigs
3 D. Hickey
23 D. Huitema - Eastern Park
8 M. Leigh
6 S. Mansell
37 B. Marshall
51 B. McMullen
32 L. Nelson
1 B. Paterson - who cares ;) KIDDING - Whyalla
45 T. Payne - Bute
10 D. Savage
* 17 D. Steele - Sedan

Help fill in the gaps here...

How many games did most of these guys play for BL? The club needs to look at who it is recruiting otherwise it will just happen again. If you offer $ to the wrong type of players they will innevitably leave for more $ elsewhere. I feel for more for the teams they played against last year - they battled against BL all year for the right to go up, BL won the right then didnt take up the option. That being said noone likes seeing a team lose by 30 goals every week either.

Glenunga- look the goods from off season recruiting and last years late form
Para Hills- if they keep everyone
CLG- div 6 premiers wiil be up and about.... Success is always a good motivator
Adelaide Lutheran- always a threat
Trinity- one to watch
CBC- will respond in div 5
Elizabeth- they've lost a few but new coach may need a season
Greenacres- 38 year old recruits won't help
North Haven- too many lost to other clubs and retirements
Westminster- they found the step up too hard a few years back!

The last time we came up from 6 to 5 we made a GF and were 15 points up half way through the last only to lose to Ian Perrie. We also won the GF last year so maybe with success being a motivator and our past history we wont finish bottom... ;)

human_torpedo wrote:Opinions are like bum holes SS, we all have one! I guess we will never know will we

All I know is CLG didnt win the GF in Div 6 in 2013

Some clubs pay people and its sustainable, some clubs don't and its sustainable. some clubs pay people and it isn't sustainable. some clubs don't pay and it isn't sustainable.

At the end of the day its up to committee of the club to work out how best to run their club. Each club in the league faces its own unique challenges and deciding whether or not to pay players is only one.

Congratulations to Daniel Cross who plays his 200th game for the Westminster tomorrow. A two time premiership player and former A grade captain, he has been a great stalwart for the club. With a supporters luncheon with Knuckles Kerley on we are hoping for a big crowd and hopefully celebrate a couple of wins.

Someone was posting that Westminster were late movers in the premiership race.
Made a statement on the weekend.

Luthies' spot in the five under the pump, they'll be fighting for that until the last game, against Elizabeth.

I pencilled them in as dark horses last week

I think JS Sports might think the same...
photo (2).jpg

..thought it was only North Haven who got the shirts done early ;)

We got a great price if we printed two years at once so we took a punt when we did our 2013 ones after round 5 last year. Worked out ok for us last year so here's hoping ;)

The Westminster Old Scholars football club is delighted to announce that coach Paul Sherwood is going to coach the A grade again in 2015. Paul joined the club last year and has taken us to back to back grand finals and his signing is terrific news going into this weeks game.

Finally back on deck after an epic weekend. Thanks to all the people who have congratulated us on here. It was a super effort from our lads to come from 5th against some quality sides. We honestly played our worst football for the year from round 16-18 but managed to re-group and set ourselves for the finals. We took basically no momentum into the finals but the confidence grew week to week and by the time the grand final came around we were flying.

Our emphasis was on pressuring the ball carrier and quick ball movement. A couple of great coaching moves to switch some players around and having almost a full squad to pick from certainly helped. On Saturdays game I was extremely happy with the way we settled. To be 4.0 to 0.1 at quarter time into a slight breeze was a great effort. I thought our blokes were first to the ball on most occasions and took the most of our chances. That then gave us the belief and momentum for the rest of the game.

IMO we probably got the better of the umpiring but that was principally because we put our head over the ball and generally got their first and the umps protected that. We did get a lot of free-kicks but I cant think of too many that weren't deserved. I do recall us getting a couple of lucky non-calls in the second 1/4 but they certainly didn't impact the result.

On the bloke with the mega-phone, surely people have to relax and just accept its a bit of banter. We were certainly copping it from the NH supporters and I'm sure if the scores had of been the other way around it would have got a lot worse. Crowds tend to sing when they're winning. Some will say its bad sportsmanship but to me its all a part of it. You should just laugh it off and get on with it, for people to say it was close to starting a riot is ridiculous - at the end of the day its amateur footy and should be about having a fun day out. I thought the crowd on a whole were great and I'm sure it would have been better if the result was closer.

For those commenting on #13 - it was also Warby's 150th game for the club on Saturday earning him life membership. He also played his 100th in the GF win over hope valley in 2008 - not a bad way to play your milestone games.

On a personal note, having been involved in all 4 of our A grade GF's since 2000 I can say coming from the elimination final is the best way to win them. The players just bond together over the 4 weeks and it certainly made celebrating with them over the last 3 days most enjoyable. We now have 3 days off the grog before the B&F on Friday night which I'm sure will be another huge night.

Go Dragons!

BIG_REDS wrote:Anyone know when the Team of The Year will be published?

Mine was published onto the back of a shirt about 5pm Saturday

I think they come out in the footy budget this week don't they?

I don't think it has anything to do with being old scholars or whether or not you pay players. To me its far more critical that players get along at a club and socialise together, this this makes them a stronger unit and therefore harder to beat in big games. Its easy to point to paid players causing divisions in teams after they lose but nothing would get said if they win. Our bond became much tighter throughout the finals after a few big nights late in the season brought the team closer together and I think that showed through the finals series. I think on grand final day we had 13 old scholars out of the 22 players so not a huge number.

I'm pretty sure this is still to be heard at the tribunal so perhaps we should wait until after the result before this gets discussed further.

morell wrote:Oh they were deserving premiers, no doubt. Very good side.

IMO CLG were a 10 goal better side and really should've won, but GF's are strange beasts.

I think that just shows how worthwhile your opinions are. CLG were nowhere near a 10 goal better side than us or Rosewater.

Honestly think about 40% of the decisions umpires make at this level would be technically incorrect or not within the spirit of the game. Of course that's completely anecdotal and I have nothing empirical to back it up. Obviously there are games where they get it right most of the time.

Considering the AFL thinks their umpires get approx 15% of their decisions wrong (1) , it wouldn't be anywhere near out of the question that a D6 amateur umpire would be going at 40%.

Also, shocked and disgusted that teams are specifically discussed at umpires training. Talk about prejudice. Make each decision on its merits FFS.

(1) http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/apprj/articles/12-gill.pdf

I don't understand why people worry about umpires. I have played 14 years of footy between div 6 and div 4 and I reckon I could count on one hand the number of times an umpire has had a significant impact on the result. Yes they make mistakes but so do the players. Its a lot more likely that a players mistake will impact a result than an umpires mistake.

Last year in trial games we lost to both BOS and TOS and then to someone else the following week. I don't read anything into them. They are competitive training drills, nothing more.

You are not authorised to read this forum.

A few years back when we last played Pooraka I was in Melbourne. The feedback I got from the game was that we lost but they put on the best post game spread ever seen in amateur football and plenty of beers for our blokes after the game. Last week we ventured back to Pooraka and lost and there was no post game spread and no beers put on. This is now 2 away games in a row with no beers from the opposition. What is the world coming to...

Congratulations to Pooraka - too good for us on Saturday. A good, tough contest, they were just a bit more efficient going forward. Also - credit to them for sticking around and having a beer in the clubrooms. Proud of our boys, finishing 6th in our first year in div 4 since 2011. We ended up playing 47 blokes in the a grade this year. Its not an excuse but will hopefully hold the club in good stead as a heap of young kids were exposed to senior footy. Kilburn and Salisbury the best two teams I saw this year but I think any of the top 3 can win it. Good luck to all playing finals - after the success of the last 2 years its going to be strange not playing.

Our clubs position, as raised on Monday night, is that the grand finalists should go up and the bottom 3 go down. This was based on the idea that you reward a successful season over a poor season. The saafl promotion / relegation system is great with the grand final representing club success a the gf being more for the players. Now it's all on the line in one game. I welcome expansion but believe the decision rewards the wrong clubs.

What a great day saturday was. I thought our guys just stuck at it for longer. It was a tough contested game of footy but we managed to absorb their physical pressure and when the ball got out in the open spaces our runners on the big deck got the better of them. I thought we were in control for all but the first 5 minutes and to keep EP to such a low score when they have been such a high scoring team all year was a great achievement.

Super happy for Tom Easton to get the BOG, he is co captain and does a mountain of work off field as he's been on the committee for the last 5 years or so.

Other than the last 5 minutes the game was played in good spirits but there were a few incidents in the crowd (the one thats been mentioned plus some swearing and abuse in front of kids throughout the day) which unfortunately soured the day.

From a club perspective thats 3 grand final wins in 4 years and promotion to div 3. Being involved in amateur footy is one of the best things you can do. It brings so much joy to so many people when your hard work pays off. Thanks to all that sent congratulatory messages through over the weekend.

It's a great day to be a dragon!

Any one in woody's shoes at that stage would have done the exact same thing .. When a spectator from the opposition, starts calling you out and walking towards you, as your minutes away from losing a grand final, what else do you expect him to do? He definitely handled it much better than I would have! And the bloke probably got what he deserved in the end, be humble in victory, don't start carrying on like a hero and expect everyone to be fine about it.. As for some of the dumbest comments I've ever read on this forum, woody is in the top 5 players in the competition by a mile and eastern park have absolutely nailed it by recruiting him.. I guarantee every club in the division would jump at the chance of signing him! He's a freak footballer and an even better bloke who wears his heart on his sleeve and stands up for what he believes in, every one of us is behind him 100% in any situation!!!
WOW. I've played and lived in the Northern suburbs my whole life and don't think anyone i know would do the same thing. Just because you can play footy doesnt make you a good bloke. Hopefully he never plays in this league again.

Unfortunately he isn't the main issue. He was just the one that took it too far this weekend.

To me the supporters are the bigger concern. They swear at and threaten players all day in front of both our players kids and their own kids which is just not on. How can clubs encourage supporters to come to games if that's what they have to put up with. And we all know if families dont want to come to games then the players will stop playing. I get that all clubs have peanut supporters who take things to far however on saturday it was clear that EP had a majority of supporters in that category who all get caught up in mob mentality.

I reckon if you did a survey of all clubs that have played at EP over the last couple of years they would all say the same thing about the supporters and the environment they are playing in. This isnt a reflection on northern clubs as Elizabeth FC is a stones throw away and is a brilliant place to play footy.

See Eastern Parks grand final indiscretion has cost them 4 home games and a couple of grand.must be running out of chances to stay in the league???

As a EPFC member for 30+ years I have never been more disappointed and disgusted in the downright stupidity of some of the morons who call themselves supporters of our club. I know for fact some were not members but others were and I cannot fathom why they can't get it through their thick heads that such irresponsible behavior will be the downfall of EPFC. I also understand the EPFC executive had acted swiftly and those involved have been dealt with severely and so they should be. I hope he Ch9AFL sanctions are well documented to the members and all involved take heed of this.

A couple of things that I am not impressed about is that I have not heard whether WOS were questioned about their involvement with at least one of the issues involved the instigator wasn't from EPFC. Then there was a raft of letters to the league from WOS supporters bemoaning how EPFC players were too rough and our supporters were yelling too loudly and singing out "demons, demons". Apparently they feared for their lives yet were quite happy to give it back as loudly as derogatory as opposition clubs do. I attended both home and away games and both final games and from my perspective there was as much give as there was take from both parties. Isn't that what you do at the footy. Give me me strength people! I will be from now on attending games with my blankey, fold up card table, scones and thermos of tea. I will ensure I will be wearing gloves so when I clap ever so lightly for my side it will not hurt the eardrums of any opposition supporters that may have past scholars playing.

Yep, the league sanctioned EP because their supporters cheered too loudly. What was the irresponsible behavior that you talked about - perhaps that is what we complained about...

Demon Juke wrote:

scottroo wrote:Thought starting Ryles Forward cost you in the end mate

Was he the Ninja Warrior?

How old is lee duggan? Best in the first final and 2nd best today - fair effort considering he played against us back in the 2008 grand final.