THE Woodside and District Wildcats have finally broken through for their maiden North Gippsland Football Netball League Premiership after quite a journey.
The club broke away from the Devon-Welshpool-Won Wron-Woodside Allies to join the NGFNL in 2008 but failed to win a final until 2021 when both the A Grade Netball and Senior Football teams finished on top of the ladder only to be robbed of a chance to go on and win the flag by the COVID cancellation of community football.
In 2022 they were bundled out in the preliminary final by TTU 88-65 and went one step further in 2023, losing the grand final to TTU, in a low-scoring affair 38-20 in the grand final.
But this year was different, gloriously different for the blue and white hoops and it was in the third quarter of Saturday’s grand final at Churchill that they set up their breakthrough opportunity by holding the TTU Bombers to just one goal, five points with the wind, blowing to the Morwell end of a perfectly prepared Churchill ground.
Via a strategic plan of defending to the dead side of the ground, with a gram of good luck, the rub of the green from the umpire, and some courageous intercept work by their defenders the only goal they allowed was through a busy Beau White but that was it.
Woodside manufactured several chances of their own, and only managed a point, but simply having it up their end, in front of the adoring fans was a win.
When they swung around with the wind in the last quarter, still leading by three points, it seemed only a matter of time.
Woodside’s forwards, including Jai Williams on Quinn Sinclair, Michael O’Sullivan on Guy Sinclair, Lee Stockdale on Liam Michie, and Daniel Farmer on Caleb Michie were in position waiting for their chance and it came quickly after the restart, Jai Williams catching the first in-coming ball and celebrating the goal as it left his boot.
Great body work by Farmer earned him a kick from the angle without result and Williams combined with Farmer soon after for a point but the sealer came from an unlikely source.
O’Sullivan dropped an absolute sitter 25 metres out from goal and copped a gobful from his TTU opponent but the Wildcats’ hairy forward had the last laugh dishing out a super slick handpass in the next passage of play to send Ashton Janssen on his way to an easy goal…celebration time.
The icing on the cake was a straight kick from Josh Kennedy after he marked a errant defensive kick by TTU. The Bombers pulled one back at the other end and continued to play the match out until full time but Woodside were simply thirstier for success after a long time between drinks, and they did more than enough to run out 15-point winners.
Final scores: Woodside 9.8.62 defeated TTU 5.17.47.
