WERRIBEE Districts have exited the Victorian Amateur Football Association on a winning note.
The Tigers have played their final game in the metro-wide
competition before joining the locally based Western Region Football
League.
For the game against Parkdale Vultures, they had an added
incentive to perform strongly, with long-time coach Kirk Norton
retiring.
The Tigers capped the day with a 26-point win over the Vultures at Soldiers Reserve on Saturday.
“You could see the intensity the boys played with,” Tigers
president Rod Harrington said. “They wanted to send him [Norton] off in
the best possible fashion.”
The Tigers claimed the wooden spoon but finished the season with
two wins from their last three games. The young squad showed a vast
improvement on the heavy losses it received earlier in the year.
Norton has set up the next coach with an exciting crop of youngsters for a new era in the WRFL.
“The improvement a lot of these young guys have made from where they were at the
start of the year to where they are now, they’ve come on in leaps and
bounds,” Harrington said. “It’s rather encouraging for us moving
forward.”
Werribee Districts had a 15-year stay in the VAFA. The Tigers’ goal was always to push into the premier divisions, but some at VAFA headquarters did not think that day would come.
“Michael Sholly said at the president’s lunch that when we first
entered the competition back in 1998, the committee and people around
the comp at the time said it was our ambition to get to the premier
sections and his response was, ‘I think you’re dreaming’,” Harrington
said.
“Certainly, it was a slow start, but under Kirk we’ve gone from D2 up to B grade in something like five years.
“We’ve certainly fulfilled the dream that we set out to, and that was to go as high as we possibly can.”
The move to the WRFL was made primarily to aid player retention.
The Tigers got sick of seeing the young players they developed being poached by cashed-up neighbours.
They will also relish the chance to renew some old rivalries that have been confined to junior ranks in recent seasons.
“We’ve got some great rivalries with other clubs in the western
region league,” Harrington said. “The main ones are Hoppers Crossing,
Altona and Spotswood … we look forward to renewing those rivalries at a
senior level at some stage.
“I believe we’ll be good for the competition and I believe the competition will be good for us.”
