WOODSIDE, a town that boasts a pub, a hall, a primary school and a football-netball club, is now only one win away from the North Gippsland Football-Netball League Grand Final.
The Wildcats continued their finals winning run, defeating Churchill by 43-points in the First Semi Final at Glengarry.
The team wearing the hoops looked dead and buried at three-quarter-time, but stormed home in a truly extraordinary performance.
Down by 23-points at the last change, Woodside slammed on 11 goals to none in the last to win 20.7 (127) to 12.12 (84).
Up until then, the Cougars looked to have the ascendancy.
Churchill kicked six goals to one in the first term, and had a lead hovering around the 20-point mark for most of the match from that point on.
The Wildcats however hit back, firstly with five goals to two in the second, paving the way for their barnstorming finish.
The Cougars only kicked one point in the final term. Woodside did too, but they kicked 11 goals as well.
Ryan Foat played a captain’s game for the winners, nailing half a dozen majors, while Ben Johnson kicked five.
Will Broadbent was best-on-ground, along with Bailey Tatnell, Lee Stockdale and Jeremy Morgan.
Dillon Leys was a standout for Churchill with five goals, and received good support from Chris Williams, Calen Hill, Ben Skinner, Jordan Fenech and Cain Iorangi.
Woodside has completed a meteoric rise in recent weeks, going from making finals by half-a-game to reaching a Preliminary Final.
While football history in the Woodside region is a bit convoluted as it could technically take in five clubs (try to keep up with this): Woodside, Won Wron, Won Wron-Woodside, Devon-Welsphool-Won Wron-Woodside, and Woodside and District, the club in its current form (Woodside and District) was only established in 2008, and before this season, had never won a final.
As the Prep kids in the playground, the Wildcats will now carry the weight of sentimentality as it plays the Grade 6s of Yallourn Yallourn North for a place in the Grand Final.
Woodside coach Michael Duncan has certainly formed a decent resume in a short space of time.
He has won 70 per cent of home-and-away games since 2018 (coaching at TTU and Woodside), finished top three in both years at TTU (2018-19), won the minor premiership at Woodside (2021) and is now about to coach in a Preliminary Final.
IF Obi Wan Kenobi followed the North Gippsland Football-Netball League, he may have picked up the phone to old mate Luke Skywalker at any time on Saturday afternoon and uttered the phrase “I felt a great disturbance in the force.”
You see, not only did Traralgon Tyers United win their way through to the Grand Final, they completely flipped on its head the notion that Yallourn Yallourn North were red-hot flag favourites.
That right had been earned via a dominant home-and-away season, where the Jets were only beaten once, but as all in attendance at Rosedale saw, finals can be a different beast.
From the moment TTU co-captain Mitch Mustoe imposed himself on the first centre clearance with a huge tackle and subsequent clearance to Michael Jacobsen, until about the 20-minute mark of the final term, it was a Bomber blitz, as TTU won 15.14 (104) to 7.14 (56).
STU Goddard, who played more like Brendan Goddard, was dominant up forward all day for TTU and slotted the first of his four goals at the three-minute mark after a great contested grab, one of around a dozen he took for the day.
When this was followed up by a Jayden Cutts mark and goal, via Rowan Hore sharking the ball form the ruck and slamming it forward, and a Brad Kelleher snap around the corner, the Bombers led by 22 points at the first break.
With Kelleher also missing two gettable chances, along with Cutts, the underdog was running the risk of wasting their dominance and kicking themselves out of the game.
The 11 scoring shots TTU managed in the opening term was surely as many as any side had had in a single quarter this season against the Jets.
As if to compound the leaky defence, the Jet’s offence, rated the best in the league, managed only a single major in the first term. This came via Keenan Hughes who toiled hard all day for little reward.
When Hughes doubled his goal tally only two minutes into the second term, it seemed temporarily that the game would be back on level terms before long.
Not so, as the Bombers ran riot and slammed on the next few.
First it was Jake Albanese at the five-minute mark, followed by Cutts and Goddard before Bailey Brown kicked a ripper for the Jets to give them some spark going into the main break.
But for Bomber inaccuracy the half-time margin of 35 points would have been much greater.
Cutts and Mustoe were in everything for TTU with Goddard and Neilson, who really come into the game in the second term, seemingly taking marks at will across half-forward.
TTU managed the ball beautifully, taking short kicks on the 45-degree angle into the corridor from the back-half to set up their offence.
If it wasn’t Jacobsen it was Dougal Williams. If not Williams it was Nick Fox or Kade Duncan, who decided it was warm enough for the short-sleeve jersey. And with Zac Kilgower and Jack Brown getting their hands on the rare YYN aerial forward forays, the slingshot off half-back served TTU well.
For YYN, Braden Paulet and Lachlan Little battled manfully with returning ruckman Alan Norris winning most of the taps, even if the Jets could not win the clearances.
Jets coach Barrie Burnett threw the magnets around over the long break trying to spark his side, but when the dynamic duo of Cutts and Goddard went bang-bang inside the first 10 minutes of the third term the result was academic.
Even a certain time keeper, riddled with anxiety and doubt about his beloved side’s ability to hold onto the lead, had to concede the red and black army was off to the big dance.
And with YYN down to 17 men when Matt Twaddle was spotted returning fire in the back-half, the procession was definitely going to continue.
The moves of Darcy Shellcott forward and Little into the middle proved somewhat effective for the Jets after the break, but they were simply fighting too many fires on too many fronts to get back into the contest.
The last quarter was all but a formality, with both sides merely hoping to get through the remainder of the clash without any injuries.
TTU kicked the first three to extend their lead to a whopping 12 goals.
First it was Hayden Willaton, who was the beneficiary of a Williams assist that Steph Curry would have been proud of.
Then the skipper got amongst them, with Neilson taking a cracking one-handed mark and kicking truly, before finally Brown, enjoying a rare break from his blue collar duties in the back-half, pushed forward to show the forwards how easy their job actually is by slotting his third goal of the season.
To their credit, the Jets battled to the very end, having six of the last seven scoring shots, but it could be argued based on their resting of Jacobsen, Kelleher and Brown at different stages late that TTU had well and truly placed the cue in the rack.
First it was Jai Massesse, who was well down on his regular contributions, kicked truly at the 22-minute mark.
Then it was the turn of Dean MacDonald to go back to back. Firstly he emulated Neilson’s one-handed clunk before kicking truly, and then followed up with a more straight forward mark and goal. He looked dangerous all day did D-Mac, however not even he can kick a bag of goals without the ball in his area.
So there it was after a couple of hours on a single Saturday afternoon at Rosedale, all that we thought we knew was turned on its head.
For TTU, it’s now all about prepping for the big one in a fortnight.
For YYN it’s about re-grouping and rebounding in seven days.
They were the best team all year for a reason and the benefit of that season-long performance is you get a second chance, a chance they will be looking to take next Saturday to Churchill when they take on Woodside.
