By RUSSELL BENNETT
ELLINBANK AND DISTRICT FOOTBALL LEAGUE
GRAND FINAL REVIEW WEST DIVISION – SENIORS
THERE are always so many chapters within one premiership story.
Cora Lynn’s win over Kooweerup at Beswick Street on Saturday afternoon delivered the club its second flag since 2008 and suddenly that ‘underachiever’ tag they’ve been given by rival fans just doesn’t seem to fit. The Cobras as a whole would have a chapter on redemption in this premiership tale, but it would be the chapters on a number of individual characters that would be the real page-turners.
Along with coach Travis Marsham, gun midfielder Ricky Clark and rising star backman Nathan Muratore, David Main was part of a quartet at Gembrook Cockatoo that lost three-straight senior grand finals from 2010 to 2012. It was a team of stars that couldn’t quite climb the mountain.
Sound familiar?
“I didn’t know Trav from a bar of soap before I went up to Gembrook at the start of 2010 – three weeks before the start of the season,” Main recalled just after Saturday’s game.
“Our relationship has just gone from there… the way he relates to his players – they’re like his kids.
“He knows how to get the best out of them and he knows how to draw the line between friendship and business.
“He sees things in people that others don’t see and he works on them to help those guys bring out the results we need.
“With the position Cora Lynn has been in for a few years, a lot of the playing group from Hora (Brad Horaczko), to Timmy (skipper Tim Payne) and Gilly (Ryan Gillis) himself… they feel they’ve been the best side for a few years but just couldn’t get over that prelim.
“The way that last quarter played out was a just reward for myself, Trav, Kid (Muratore) and Rick to know that even though we’ve lost grand finals, the hard work we’ve done with Cora Lynn has really paid off.”
For Muratore, Saturday was a case of fifth-time lucky – getting his first taste of senior premiership glory after four losses on the last Saturday of a season.
“He’s very quiet but he’s very professional and he was the first guy we thought of when we sat down and thought about what we needed in this team,” Main said.
As for Clark – his playing resume speaks for itself. He might just be the most decorated local player the Gazette has covered over the past decade. Even this season, in the twilight of his playing career, he was named rover of the Gazette’s EDFL West Team of the Year and claimed the best-on-ground medal in the grand final.
Main and Marsham are both unequivocal – he’s the best player they’ve played with and coached.
Nathan Gillis – one half of the Gillis brother’s tandem – credited Clark with helping boost his development as a player this season.
Nathan and his brother Ryan have been much-maligned at times but this year they’ve both played starring roles. While Ryan is one of the competition’s most dangerous forwards, Nathan is a bonafide gun midfielder.
He also paid special tribute to Marsham – who he says has affected “a massive turnaround”.
“Taking nothing at all away from Brendan Kimber – he was a really good coach for us – but it’s been a massive turnaround under Trav,” he said.
“We’ve talked about discipline and attitude from the start of the year and today it’s paid off.”
The 23-year-old won his first senior flag on Saturday and simply described it as “one of the best feelings I’ll ever have”.
Speaking of the at-times maligned… Jackson Dalton also clinched his first senior premiership.
He started his footy journey with team mate Nathan Langley at Hampton Park when they were both five-years-old, but the connection runs deeper than that.
They were born on the same day of the same year – 3 March, 1994. They grew up together, went to the same schools and played at the same footy club.
Soon after Langley was bizarrely red-carded for obscene language in the first quarter on Saturday, Dalton went to comfort his mate.
“I said just because you’ve been sent off, that’s nothing to us,” Dalton said.
“We still get to play with 18 (players) and you don’t owe us anything. You’ve given us enough all year.”
That’s just how much Dalton has matured, in his own words.
Having gone through a nasty patella tendon injury and a broken leg, the 20-year-old has done a lot of growing up since his “ratbag” days as a teenager.
“As a kid I thought I was really mature because I always had a lot of older friends and I played senior footy when I was 15,” he said.
“When I look back on it now I was a ratbag – I was shocking.
“I saw the highs and lows of footy as a 15-year-old but my maturity levels have risen so much again from breaking my leg (early this year).
“It was probably a blessing in disguise because mentally I wasn’t ready for senior footy – even last year I was still a kid at heart.
“When I broke my leg Trav said to me that I still needed to be involved so I took the forwards for the first six or seven games and that was the best thing I’ve done – it made me see footy in a whole new light.”
Dalton was arguably the best player on the ground on Saturday not named Ricky Clark and he thinks it was the performance he needed to have.
“I needed to put a stamp on senior footy because I’ve played for four full seasons now and never done it,” he said candidly.
“Today I think was the day.”
