Spotswood players couldn’t bare to watch Deer Park receiving the Western Region Football League division 1 premiership spoils.
The pain of losing successive grand finals by a point was all too much for the Woodsmen to handle.
Bad kicking in front of goal and a lack of composure at the crunch
has haunted them over the past 12 months since last year’s grand final
loss to Altona, and it reared its ugly head again.
PICTURE GALLERY: Deer Park v Spotswood, grand final
Shell-shocked Woodsmen onballer Michael Fogarty spoke on behalf of
his team after it blew a 41-point lead in a game that was supposed to
be redemption for last year’s heartbreaker. “I don’t know how to feel,”
he told the Weekly.
“I don’t know what kind of emotion to show, especially losing the grand final by a point last year and then this year.
“All the hard work we did over the preseason, starting late
October, and finishing up with nothing, no reward – it’s a big kick in
the guts for the boys.”
It’s a stomach-churning feeling for the Woodsmen.
The positive is they have shown, by making the grand final after the devastation of 12 months ago, they can bounce back.
This time, they will have to do it without inspirational
player-coach Chris O’Keefe, who told the players he would be stepping
aside.
O’Keefe, one of the great onballers of the modern era, has played his last game in the green and gold.
Fogarty said O’Keefe would leave a big legacy and a giant hole in the line-up.
“He’s been phenomenal He gets the boys up and about.
“I’m half his age and I’d love to be doing what he’s doing when I’m his age.
“The way he breaks away from the clearances is unreal.
“He’s going to be a big loss to the club.
“He’s probably been the best player in the WRFL in the past five or six years.”
The Woodsmen have played in the past seven grand finals and won four.
Goal sneak Will Langlands is the only player to have featured in all seven trips to the big dance.
Meanwhile, the Woodsmen are still seething after having to play the grand final without star forward Christian Elliott.
Elliott, who booted 36 goals during the home-and-away rounds,
sustained a broken jaw in what the Woodsmen claim to be a “behind play”
incident against Deer Park in the semi-finals.
“It’s been a big loss for us,” Fogarty said.
“He usually kicks three or four every week, he’s pretty hard to match up on and he was in the team of the year this year.
“The boys were pretty devastated by [the incident] and his [Elliott’s] old man is filthy about it.
“It was behind play, so that’s even worse.”
WRFL DIVISION 1 GRAND FINAL STORIES
The breakdown: Quarter x quarter
