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New guard for Gippsland League powerhouse club
McKay to lead Blues in 2022 Liam Durkin
ROSEDALE Football-Netball Club recently announced the re-signing of senior coach Brad McKay. McKay came to the Blues after a stellar career with Sale City, which included premiership success and a place in the North Gippsland Football-Netball League Team of the Year on two occasions. While there was ultimately no real winners in the last NGFNL season, Rosedale risked being the hard luck story after it was announced the competition would go straight to finals — leaving the sixth placed Blues without the chance to compete. The Blues were unlucky in some respects not to finish higher, as they lost to finals bound teams Woodside by one point, Traralgon Tyers United (seven points) and Churchill (nine points). Adding to that, Rosedale defeated fourth placed Yarram on its home deck as well as preseason fancies Heyfield, and also drew with Sale City. Season 2021 could well have result in the Blues finishing with a win-loss record of nine-one. With this in mind, it is likely McKay won't be looking to change things too much, and will just be aiming to turn some of those close losses into wins next season. Rosedale's last NGFNL premiership came in 2015, and the Blues have generally offered good competition for all opponents over the years. The Blues strong off-field reputation was harnessed further last season, after the club was awarded code of conduct recognition by the NGFNL for the way in which its players, officials and supporters presented themselves and played in the correct spirit. Rosedale also hosted a mental health game for Mindful Aus during the season, wearing specially made football jumpers and netball bibs to raise awareness for a worthy cause. Rosedale forward Brandon McDonald led the league goal kicking this year, slotting 48 majors, with bags of nine against Gormandale and Glengarry, and seven playing Sale City and Cowwarr respectively. McDonald has kicked 265 goals his last five years at the Blues.
Liam Durkin
Chris Potalej will be aiming to resurrect Gormandale’s fortunes next season.
Photo: Gormandale FNC Facebook
Crossword No. 8450 S T R P I P S E T E M W A C H L I N F E
Page 26 – Times-Spectator, Tuesday, 5 October, 2021
Photo: Leongatha FNC Facebook
Potalej answers the Tiger challenge
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Sudoku No. 0074
New Leongatha senior coach Trent McMicking and assistant Brad Hutchinson.
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GORMANDALE Football-Netball Club has appointed Chris Potalej as senior coach for next season. Potalej will add another dot point to his Gormandale FNC resume, as he has also been captain and assistant coach in previous seasons. Of all the challenges in country football, Potalej might just have the biggest one, as he takes on a team that has not won a game since August 2018. While that sobering reality might well have broken other clubs, the Tigers have bravely fought on in the years since. Having coached the under 18 team the previous two seasons, the infrastructure should be in place for Potalej to bring a number of promising youngsters up to the senior team. The Gormandale under 18s were due to play North Gippsland Football-Netball League finals in 2021 before the season was abandoned, and all going well, those young players will want to stay at Gormandale and become strong senior players in coming years. Potalej already has a new recruit, with Dale Williamson signing on. Williamson comes to the Tigers after stints with Narre Warren, Warragul Industrials and Elmore in the Bendigo region. The incoming coach takes over from Daniel Earl,
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who went through a rather torrid time in his first stint as a senior coach. Having previously coached Moe to multiple reserve grade finals in the Gippsland League, Earl made the step up to senior coach at Gormandale. His time in charge at the Tigers coincided with an abandoned COVID season in 2020, before an even more frustrating stop-start 2021. With players from most if not all clubs finding it hard to get motivated as season 2021 dragged on, it was exasperated at Gormandale given the fact the Tigers had gone so long without even winning a game. Some promising patches early in the season came crashing down, and ultimately Gormandale didn't really come close to getting a win on the board. The Tigers best chance was against 10th placed Cowwarr in Round 10. Scores were level at quarter time, but the Saints broke away to record a 40 point victory. Gormandale has won six NGFNL premierships. The Tigers title years are 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1992 and 1995. Leaving Gormandale is senior captain Josh Pearce, who is heading back to home club Newborough. The Bulldogs have been actively enticing former players back to the club for next year under new coach Craig Skinner. As well as Pearce, key position defender Luke Webber, midfielder Liam Charles and swingman Jayden Van Dyk will all be pulling on the red, white and blue in 2022.
Target Time No. 0074
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cede, censed, cestode, code, condense, coned, conned, CONSENTED, contend, costed, decent, dene, denote, dense, dent, descent, docent, done, donee, dose, dost, dote, encode, need, nested, node, nosed, noted, scend, scented, second, seed, send, sonde, steed, stoned, teed, tend, tendon, tensed, toed, toned. Target: Average - 22, Good - 27, Excellent - 33+
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Brad McKay will coach Rosedale again next season. Photo: Rosedale FNC Facebook
GIPPSLAND League powerhouse Leongatha will have a new senior football coach in 2022. Trent McMicking will lead the Parrots, taking over from Paul Carbis. Carbis coached Leongatha for four seasons, taking them to a premiership in 2018 and a grand final in 2019. He added to the Leongatha-Maffra storyline that has seen the two dairy farming communities play off in every Gippsland League decider since 2016. During Carbis' time, the ledger was split one-one against Eagles' coach Wayne Butcher, to go with an overall tally of two-two for Leongatha-Maffra grand finals. Maffra won in 2016 and 2019, while Leongatha claimed the trophy in 2017 and 2018 - the former by just a single point. The new Parrots coach has a career in Gippsland, having held a position at Tarwin Football-Netball Club, before spending seven years working alongside Warragul's own Gary Ayres at VFL club Port Melbourne. McMicking coached the Port Melbourne Development League side and also worked in areas of junior development at the club. He will be assisted at Leongatha by Aaron Heppell (brother of Essendon captain Dyson), Stuart Wigney and Mark Lafferty, as well as new assistant coach Brad Hutchinson. Leongatha finished the abandoned Gippsland League season on top of the ladder, and looked odds-on favourite of claiming the premiership.
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