2025 Season Report

45D Season Report

Our team
Neil Alderman, Jason Annesley, Colin Berry, Jason Blair, Pete Feehan, Adam Flanagan, Joe Hamilton, Dave Henson, Glenn Hickey, Murray Hilder, Steven Hyem, Stephen Jegers, Gavin Knight, Mark L’Estrange, Brad Linsell, Mick McKinnon, Darren McInerney, David Mulley, Tom O’Loughlin, Stephen Prescott, Darren Price, David Scanlan (Irish), Craig Selvage, Craig Sheehy, Steve Thacker, Glen Tonna, Scott Vitelli, Chris Wright

This year we saw a combining of a couple of teams from last season, our 35D’s joined our 45D’s. This also provided us with an extremely large squad of 28, never easy to manage and becomes difficult for the final series, although you do need all to make it.

With so many players, it was hopeful that we’d have a little better season than the prior year. As it turned out WOW what a season we had. Last year most of the team playing 45D’s finished last by a fair bit. With the introduction of some younger players, we turned a last place to Minor Premiers. In the end losing just 1 game during the regular season.

From the start of the season the team geld well and we came out of the blocks with some very promising results. It didn’t take long to realise that we were in this comp from the start. We led for much of the season and in the end held on although we probably played our best football early and mid-season. We scored 36 goals, although not the most it was a significant improvement on prior years. We just went off the boil late. We had the best defence in the comp only conceding 13 goals during the regular season which was the main contributing factor in finishing first. Apart from the 1 Semi Final game there was no other game where we conceded more than 2 goals in a game.

We had a lot of fun along the way with a lot of banter. Just a few highlights
Hicks was a rock between the sticks and assisted our backline by playing as an extra defender at times and perhaps one of the main reasons our season was so successful. If only he knew when the season finished, he may well had been available for the GF. Thanks to Henno for being thrown in the deep end and doing a great job.
Joe and Git were very effective as a combination in the centre at the back.
Mull and Chops were always willing to put their body on the line in the mid field.
Pete was great moving from the backline to the midfield and managing to snare a few goals. It was probably a shame that he did spend about 6 weeks on the sideline.
Our strikers Brad and Mick combined well and scored the bulk of our goals during the season, although Mick may have liked Brad to pass him the ball a little more often. Mick also managed to spend some time in the sin bin and was a regular vistor

To Steve Thacker, Selvo, Hymie and Jegers it was unfortunate that we couldn’t squeeze you in for the Final Series. However, your efforts during the year contributed to our finishing position.
2 Red cards during the year, with Hicks not quite knowing where his penalty Box is and Gav having a disagreement in the Grand Final with an opposing player, didn’t quite like receiving a head butt.

Thanks to the limited supporters who showed up during the year and supported the team I’m sure it was a little better than the last year.

To the team, it was a fantastic year, we may not had been Premiers, but we were minor Premiers. Unfortunately, Bosco were just too good for us, they were the only team that beat us all year, they just happened to do it 3 times and twice in the Final Series. With a large squad this helped us immensely during the year. However, it then makes it tough during the finals series as players mis out on playing in the Finals games. Everybody within the team made some contribution during the season and all helped us to achieve the Minor Premiership. Thanks to all for the season and let’s bring on next season playing in the C’s. We may not had won the Premiership but we did have fun during the season and will enjoy ourselves on our trip away.