Tara Murray
The years of hard work have paid off for Kyneton as it celebrates its first women’s football premiership.
Having started their women’s program back in 2014, it took the Tigers until their third competition, the Riddell District Football League, to claim a premiership.
There’s been plenty of highs and heartache along the way, but the time is now for the Tigers who are the winners of the inaugural RDFL women’s premiership.
Natalie Korinfsky has been part of the Tigers program since day one and has been one of the main drivers of the program, having taken on a number of different roles.
She said there were still three or four of the original team still part of the club.
“It’s unbelievable,” she said. “It’s one of the best feelings you can ever have as a player.
“There’s been a lot of lows and we’ve come out on the other side. If you stick to it, good things will come to you.
“We stuck to the game style that [coach] Phil [Hawkes] wanted. We had really players come in and want to improve themselves, it just meant we got better and better every week.”
Both Korinfsky and Hawkes knew that the Cats were going to bring the pressure. There was a big crowd at Gilbert Gordon Oval for the match which was held under lights.
The Tigers led by five points at quarter time, having not made the most of their opportunities.
Jordan Savoia kicked two goals to extend the lead, before the Cats kicked of their own through Lauren Roberts, their first goals against the Tigers for the season.
Savoia got her third to give the Tigers a 13 point lead at the main break.
The Tigers managed to keep that gap throughout the second half and two second half goals sealed the 5.13 (43)-3.2 (20) win.
Hawkes said he had some nerves before the game, but once the game got underway they settled.
He said the Cats showed a lot of fight throughout the game.
“We knew they would probably bring the pressure, but it was a little more than expected,” he said.
“They were ferocious at the ball and I know what they were trying to do was put pressure on our players that they couldn’t get that open style of play going.
“For the first quarter and probably even most of the game, that was working reasonably well for them.
“The game opened up later in the game. They fought all the way, well done to Macedon.”
Both Korinfsky and Hawkes said they knew with a few minutes left they had done enough to seal the premiership and were able to enjoy it.
Alex Strawhorn was awarded the best on ground medal. Savoia, Teagan Ainslie and Belinda Hateley were among the other standouts.
Hawkes said the victory and the perfect season, had been a few years in the making.
“That is just a dream,” he said. “We didn’t really expect that, we knew we were improving.
“We did some work in the previous season in the Bendigo league and probably should have played finals.
“I knew it was coming together but it was a bit unknown, it was all new sides for us.
“The standard is not bad and I think we went up another notch this year, another level. It was great to be able to do that.”
Korinfsky said to see a full house like that with everyone loving women’s football was something that you want to see across the state.
As well as the women’s side’s first premiership, it was the club’s first senior premiership since 1997.
A big crowd was expected back at the club rooms after the match to celebrate the result.
“It’ll be two or three days of celebrations,” Korinfsky said.
