Tara Murray
Diggers Rest capped off an almost perfect season with not one, but two premierships in the Riddell District Football League on Sunday.
Grand final day started well for the Burras with their reserves winning their fifth premiership early Sunday afternoon.
The seniors were soon on the field, hoping to follow suit.
After losing just one game all season, the Burras entered the grand final as favourites against a Woodend-Hesket side playing in its first grand final since 2007.
The Burras had won the two match ups between the sides during the season, with the Burras the only side that the Hawks hadn’t beaten.
It was a high scoring start to the game with 10 goals kicked in the opening quarter, with the Burras leading by 13 points at quarter time.
The margin grew to 34 points at the main break, with the Burras in control of the game.
The Hawks started the second half the better of the two teams and had their chances to bring the game back within two goals.
But the Burras had the answers and had extended the margin to 38 points at the last break to all but have secured the win with one quarter to go.
The Burras won 16.9 (105)-9.8 (62).
Burras coach Jamie Lobb said it was an amazing feeling to be at the back of the top of the table.
“It’s definitely a different feeling to this day last year,” he said. “We definitely deserved and earned this one.
“It was a completely different path to last year when we did it the long way, battling to get guys up each week.
“This year we finished on top and earned the right for the week off and won the first final and the boys were cherry ripe today.”
The Burras had just about a whole list to pick from, with only two players not available for selection.
Lobb had said throughout the back end of the season and finals that they believed they were peaking at the right time.
He was exactly right.
The start was a key for Lobb in trying to get the game on their terms.
“We knew if we were in it at half time that they would fade away a little,” he said “They’ve had hard games every week.
“They’re a bit more bigger bodied than us and we knew that we would get them on the outside eventually.
“We had to stick to our guns and not panic and the guys executed it pretty well.”
Lobb said he would have taken the half time margin if it had been offered to him at the start of the day.
He said they had to grind out the win in the second half and the guys really committed to everything that they were trying to do.
Marcus Calvaresi kicked four goals for the Burras, while Mitchell Day kicked three, Mitch Jensen and Josh Flower two apiece.
Jaycob Hickey was named best on ground, awarded the Doug McIntyre Medal.
Lobb himself picked that Hickey was set for a big game.
“He’s a big time player and superstar,” he said. “What he did today was one of the reasons we were so keen to get him over.”
Calvaresi, Jaidyn Caruana and Mark Orr were also named in the best.
Taylor Hine, Matthew Krul, Cole Laurie, Tom Evans and Josh Wallace became three-time senior premiership players with the club with Sunday’s win.
Lobb played in the first premiership, was a playing-coach in the second one, and now coach for the third one.
Lobb said it was special for the club that both their teams were able to come away with premierships.
Each time the seniors have won the premiership, the reserves have also won it that year.
“It’s amazing,” Lobb said.
“If we’re going well it feeds down. There’s some good players, playing in our reserves that would play seniors in most other clubs in our areas, credit to them they stick at it, credit to them and we’re winning flags like today.
“We’ll enjoy this one for a bit longer than most, refresh hopefully go again.”
