By Russell Bennett
WGCA PREMIER GRAND FINAL
THE VANQUISHED
It wasn’t just the legend of Kooweerup that grew on the weekend. So too did the legend of Phil Anning, the Pakenham Cricket Club president and former Kooweerup coach.
The little man with a heart of gold has always been a class act, but what he displayed on Sunday afternoon in the Kooweerup rooms straight after the Demons had belted out their song following a crushing win over his side was nothing short of inspiring.
Here are some excerpts of what Anning told the Kooweerup players, support staff, committee, and fans.
“I’ve got to say I’m extremely disappointed in the Kooweerup Cricket Club first off… because I thought we had a mutual agreement that we took it in turns to win these!
“It’s really interesting that for the past five or six years, through social media and comments from talking with people, every year after Kooweerup has been successful you hear things like ‘Tubsy (Chris O’Hara) is too old’ and ‘the Bright boys (Paul, Matt, Chris, and John) have been there too long’, but we sit back at Pakenham and think those people are living in a fantasy world to think that this club is just going to slide away and not want to better itself and continue to grow.
“We sit there and think that if we want to win another premiership, we’re going to have to beat the best side in the competition – which is Kooweerup.
“We know that, and we were fortunate enough to win it two years ago, but over the past two years we’ve been beaten by a better side and that’s undisputable.
“Dom (Paynter) said that to our players, and we’ve got a lot of work to do if we want to match you blokes.
“We’ll do everything in our power at the Pakenham Cricket Club to make sure that your run comes to an end next year.
“If it doesn’t, we’ll put our tails between our legs again as we will tonight and we’ll start planning how we can do it, because you are the benchmark and you should be very proud of that – whether it’s Mark (Cooper) as coach, or Gilesy (Michael Giles) before him. Whoever.
“Our season will not be defined by the result of today’s grand final. It will be defined by getting four sides into the grand final.
“It’s no coincidence that our Premier sides are playing off in a grand final, our second sides are both playing off in grand finals, and our junior sides are playing off against each other in the under-16s. We’re doing something right, and while every other club wants to sit back and have little snide remarks and play silly mind games, we’ll continue to go out there and play the game in the spirit it was meant to be when it was first developed.
“No other club has taken the mantra of the Pakenham or Kooweerup cricket clubs and thought ‘maybe this is the way we need to improve ourselves’.
“I don’t like being in here, but if ever I was going to be in some other side’s rooms, these are the rooms I’d be in.
“Be very proud of what you’ve achieved. You’re a wonderful club with a wonderful support group, and you’ve got wonderful facilities… but the thing I like most about Kooweerup is that I coached you!”
