By Lance Jenkinson
This was a premiership with six appeal for Deer Park.
The Lions broke new ground in becoming the first non-amateur top flight team in AFL Victorian metropolitan leagues to register an astonishing sixth consecutive premiership with a runaway 48-point win over Hoppers Crossing in the Western Region Football League division 1 grand final at Avalon Airport Oval on Saturday.
Lions coach Marc Bullen is rarely lost for words, but on the day his club set a new record, he was taken aback.
“I don’t know what to say to be honest,” he said.
“It’s pretty raw at the moment.
“It’s hard to explain.”
The eight-goal margin would suggest that Deer Park had the game all on its own terms.
That is half right, as the Lions did totally dominate the second half, but it was so far from the truth if you take into account a super competitive first half.
Bullen was seething at quarter-time and rightly so.
The Lions had the aid of a strong breeze and an extra man for 15 minutes after Hoppers Crossing’s Harley Armstrong-Weston was shown a yellow card, but they could not capitalise in the first quarter, finishing with 2.5 and a flimsy five-point lead.
Hoppers Crossing had a chance to stamp its authority on the game in the second term, but they too did not make the most of the strong wind at their back.
Ryan Kitchen ran into an open goal to give the Warriors a lead, but Herb Pascarl Medal winner for best-on-ground Chris Stewart replied with a stupendous goal to wrench the lead back.
Instead of taking the ball out of the ruck, Stewart kicked the ball in mid-air from about 25 metres out and it fortuitously sailed straight over the goal umpires hat.
Hoppers Crossing took the lead again through Ashlin Brown, a sensational snap goal from hard up on the boundary that would have been goal of the day in most other games had it not been for Stewart’s pearler.
That would be the Warriors last lead of the game.
James Wong and Stewart rounded out the quarter with goals to give Deer Park a 12-point lead at the main break.
It was a crucial buffer because up until that point Bullen was unusually tense on the sidelines.
“I didn’t think it was going to happen for us in the first half of footy,” he said.
“I thought it wasn’t going to be our day.”
Never fear, Deer Park would find its very best form of the season in the second half.
The Lions piled on 7.8 to 2.2 in the second half – only their wayward kicking for goal stopping it from being a total blow out.
Once Mark Galea’s beautiful snap goal for Deer Park to start the third quarter was followed up by a long goal from teammate Wong, it seemed only a matter of time before the Lions would break the game open.
Daniel Strnak, who had a stellar game as a small forward for Hoppers Crossing, got one against the run of play, but his team had to wait until time-on of the last quarter to get the goal umpires’ two flags waving again when Kitchen got a consolation goal.
In between, it was all Deer Park. There were dominant Lions players on every line.
Wong, after a slow start, became the most dangerous forward in the match, though Galea could have some claims too.
Jason Kennedy was rock solid at full-back in his last game before going into retirement, while Rodney Van Riet’s experience shone through, Kwame McHarg got stronger as the game wore on and Trent Williams played a negating role.
Jake McKenzie and Paul Bower, both superb ball users off half-back and through the midfield, were stiff to be second-best in the race for the best-on-ground medal.
However, the honour simply had to go to Stewart.
Bullen was tremendously proud to lead Deer Park to a record-breaking sixth straight flag.
“It’s just a great feeling from a personal point of view and more importantly for the club to succeed six years in a row,” he said.
“We could’ve lost two of the grand finals out of the last six by an inch and the challenge came at us today in Hoppers, who were sensationally coached and had a great game plan, but we managed to overcome them.”
For more pictures from the grand final, CLICK HERE
