North Footscray full-forward Jason Butty would have been content to walk away with a premiership medal following Sunday’s 58-point grand final win over Yarraville-Seddon.
However, with seven goals to his name, Butty was widely acknowledged as the match-winner for the Devils, so he got the added bonus of the Rex Swann Medal for best-on-ground.
That second medal could be good for a bit of harmony around the Butty household in the coming weeks.
“It’s good for the kids at home,” Butty said with a laugh.
“We’ve got two little girls, so now they don’t have to fight over one medal, it’s one each.”
Butty ignited North Footscray in the first quarter and maintained the rage throughout.
Butty and his brother-in-law Tyren Montebruno, who kicked four, were unstoppable, combining for 11 goals.
“We’ve played a fair bit of footy together now, so we’ve got that chemistry where we know where each other is going and we try and keep each other isolated one-on-one,” Butty said.
“I back him to out-mark his opponent and he’ll do the same for me.”
In week one of the finals, Yarraville-Seddon strangled the life out of North Footscray, restricting them to under 30 inside 50s.
The Devils more than doubled their tally in the grand final and the quality of delivery was first class, giving Butty and Montebruno the best chance to wreak havoc.
“The first week in the semi-final, we had about 26 inside 50s and we highlighted that we needed to give the forwards more supply,” Butty said.
“We just really wanted to get the ball in long and strong today, back our forwards in like we’ve done all year and the midfielders did a power of work to nullify their midfielders, and once we started pumping the ball in, we had about 60 inside 50s, it’s really hard to stop when we’re getting that sort of supply.”
Butty finished the season with the most goals with 57. Montebruno was close behind with 52.
On grand final day, it took a collective effort from all 22 North Footscray players to overcome a Yarraville-Seddon side that entered the game as slight favourites.
“It was just a good consistent effort,” Butty said.
“We had winners on every line and when you do that as a team, when you have more winners than losers in each position, it goes a long way to winning the game like we did.”
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