Fish Creek to play Newborough in Mid-Gippsland grand final, eager to add 37th trophy to cabinet

With 36 senior premierships, ‘Fishy’ are the most successful club in Victorian country football, and they will have the chance to add to their tally and overflowing trophy cabinet in this Saturday’s Mid-Gippsland league decider.

Their opponent will be Newborough, which strayed from the ‘W’ column only once this season, when it drew with Foster.

Newborough won 15 home-and-away matches and held out Fish Creek by five points in the second semi-final.

The Bulldogs also contested last season’s grand final but lost to Yinnar.

Last Saturday’s Mid-Gippy preliminary final was played at Foster Showgrounds and pitted Fish Creek against Thorpdale, coached by former Essendon speedster Jason Winderlich.

Returning to his junior club this year, Winderlich and his boyhood friend Ray Pickering had lifted Thorpy from second-last on the ladder in 2022.

Fish Creek president Ray Stefani had called Winderlich’s team the “feel-good story of the year’’, and the Thorpy supporters hoped the rousing ride could continue at the Showgrounds.

But after kicking the first goal of the match, they were never in it.

“Don’t give ’em 2m! Because at this time of the year 2m is like 5m,’’ Winderlich said at the first change.

The difference at halftime was 26 points.

By the final siren it was 70 points – 12.6 (88) to 2.6 (18).

Weakened by injuries, there was no fairy tale result for Thorpdale, only a formidable opponent accustomed to finals success and which took great delight in winning on the Foster ground.

Foster and Fish Creek do not like each other; the towns are only 14km apart but there is a great divide between their football clubs.

When it was pointed out to a Foster official last Saturday that Fishy had won 36 senior premierships, he shot back: “That’s 36 too many.’’

Fish Creek finished down the ladder last year, its first completed season in Mid-Gippsland after the Alberton league was wound up at the end of 2019.

Jarrod Walker was promoted from player to playing coach and the Kangaroos added a few recruits, including returning premiership pair Ayden Wilson and Blaine Coates.

But Fish Creek made a so-so start to the season, losing heavily to Meeniyan Dumbalk United and Newborough in the first month.

“We were treading water, that’s for sure. It wasn’t looking fantastic,’’ Stefani says.

“We had injuries, some bad ones, and then we had others away. A lot of young ones wanted to go overseas this year. Players were coming in and out. We had to juggle all that and plug a few holes.’’

Gradually things picked up.

Stefani says he told Walker mid-season that he could sense “something building’’.

“We’d won about three in a row. It wasn’t just the wins, it was how we’d won. They were really gritty wins,’’ he says.

“You could see all the boys were buying in, they were on board, they were right behind Jarrod. For a new, inexperienced coach, that’s important.’’

Like a lot of his players, Walker, a plumber, lives and works in Melbourne.

Every week he takes a Fish Creek training session at Highett, in the southeast of Melbourne.

A lot of the Fishy players had been with southeast clubs: Walker at Murrumbeena, Tom Cameron at Ormond, Roland De Biase at Hampton Rovers and Bentleigh, Tom Valenta at Murrumbeena, Stewart McCooke at Ormond and Jack Hayes at St Paul’s.

But there are still names on the team sheet that have a long association with Fish Creek and its football.

Stefani is co-president of the club with Nick Shaw. Their sons, Jai Stefani and Jordan Shaw, will both play in the grand final.

Matt ‘Moose’ McGannon is the son of Barry and grandson Cliff, Fishy greats both, and Jake Staley is Darren’s boy.

Stefani says the club had been struggling to find a coach this year.

In the end it decided to follow the lead of neighbouring Inverloch-Kongwak and “appoint from within the playing group’’.

“We saw what they did and thought we’d go into our own ranks to find someone too,’’ Stefani says.

“We had plenty of experience in the team so we spoke about, ‘Why not have a chat with the leadership group and see whether we can do something, maybe have two coaches or even three’.

“We did a conference call with the players and they said they hadn’t really thought about it. Then Jarrod rang us back the next day and said he was keen to have a crack at it. He said he had the support of the boys and he was happy to go it alone. And since then he’s been fantastic. He was nervous, like a young coach is. A lot of the players are his mates, and it can be hard to coach your mates. He was concerned about how he would go talking to the group. But he grew a leg once he got rolling.’’

He says Walker is organised and dedicated.

Fish Creek’s last premiership was in 2018, in the Alberton league.

“It’s a bit of a rush,’’ Stefani says of getting into another grand final.

“I love standing back and watching everybody and seeing the different emotions.

“Because it’s a big effort to get to a grand final … all the volunteer work that goes into it, the phone calls and the meetings and the emails and the training sessions and players coming back and forth … it’s massive. And then it all comes together to get the chance to win a premiership on the last day. Makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck.’’

Last Sunday Stefani drove to Maffra to watch his daughter play in a netball final.

He encountered some people from nearby Leongatha at the game.

One of them remarked: “You blokes have done it again … what is it about Fish Creek and grand finals?’’

It made him a proud president.

Newborough coach Craig Skinner also knows a bit about grand finals.

He steered the Bulldogs to premierships in 1999 and 2000, returned to the club last year and took it to another decider.

His second son, Alex, is Newborough’s captain – and his eldest son is former AFL player Sam Skinner, who was cruelled by knee injuries.

“It’s a brutal sport. The highs are high and the lows are low, and grand finals are exactly the same,’’ Craig Skinner, 50, says.

“We had that low feeling last year. I have no intention of going through that again. We’ve done some serious preparation.’’

Skinner says all but three of his players came through the Newborough juniors.

One is Victorian Premier cricketer Joel Mitchell, a key forward who has booted 43 goals from 10 matches this season.

Another is Nathan Wheildon, the cousin of colourful former league player Darren.

Saturday’s Mid-Gippsland grand final will be played at Morwell East.