Tara Murray
Macedon held its nerve late to hold off Kyneton to claim its first Riddell District Football League women’s premiership.
After making a surprise grand final in their first season last year, the Cats had been the best side all season this year.
They hadn’t lost a game for the season with the only blemish a draw against Kyneton the first time they met.
Two convincing wins against the Tigers since, including in the first week of the finals, had the Cats full of confidence.
The match could have been close to over at quarter time had the Cats kicked straight. They were 2.7 at quarter time having dominated the game.
From there it was an arm wrestle.
The Tigers got back into the game and had the lead on more than one occasion,
When Charlotte Noonan kicked her first goal of the match to put the Cats up by 13 late in the final quarter, it seemed the Cats had done enough.
There was still time left in the story with the Tigers kicking two goals to bring it back to one point.
Macedon was able to hold on to win 5.8 (38)-6.1 (37).
Cats coach Damien Slater said he can’t believe how far this side has come in the past two seasons..
“It’s pretty amazing, to firstly get a team up,” he said. “We had three players turn up for training and then ended up getting a few and then we made a grand final unexpectedly.
“We performed pretty well last year.
“This year we had a few girls come from Gisborne and it helped us a bit, helped us for numbers.
“We probably weren’t flush for numbers either. For that to happen and then to win it like this, it’s good for the girls
“They worked pretty hard all year”
Slater said they knew that it was a going to be a tough grand final despite having had a couple of good wins against the Tigers,
He said it was a credit to the girls that they were able to respond when they needed to.
“We were obviously favourites coming in and that always brings us a fair bit of pressure,” he said. “The girls felt that halfway through the game, but then to their credit they rallied and stuck it out.
“I was very nervous though.”
Slater said looking back at the first quarter that they could have put the game away to a certain extent.
He said they had spoken to the girls before the game that it would ebb and flow throughout.
“I knew Kyneton were very strong around the ball,” he said. “So I knew if they got their hands on the ball first, we could have been in a bit of trouble.
“The second and third quarters that is exactly what they did.”
The last quarter was a real arm wrestle. When Noonan, the competition’s leading goal kicker finally scored, the Cats found themselves in a good position.
Slater was full of praise for how Noonan fought through a tough night.
“I said to her at quarter time, you’re going to be marked, you’ve kicked a lot of goals they’ve going to put a lot of time into you,” he said.
“All I want to do is provide a contest… I said it will come and she got one.”
Slater said when that goal went through they were in control of the game before the Tigers fought back and pushed it to the wire.
Lilli Collins kicked two goals for the Cats, while Ninna Harbinson, Scarlett Lynch and Noonan were named their best.
Kyneton’s Teagan Ainslie was awarded the best on ground medal.
The win caps off Slater’s time as coach at the Cats.
Having moved to Echuca he has spent a lot of time travelling back and forth.
“I’ll give someone else a go,” he said. “Where the club is at they need a different voice and probably someone, who can give it more time, more structure and more focus.
“Hopefully given the next coach a good crew to work with.”
While Slater is set to depart the club, the future is bright.
“We’ve got the junior girls grand final tomorrow [Sunday],” he said. “That is great.
“The pathway is coming through, the beauty about it is the girls we’ve got playing in the youth girls wouldn’t have a pathway without this side.
“We’ve got 10 girls coming up next year.”
