Melton South is set to use this season as a building block in the Riddell District Football League.
The first season back in the Riddell league proved to be a successful one for the Panthers after a number of tough years in the Ballarat Football League.
They returned to the winners list after a couple of years without victory and finished with a better than 50 per cent win record.
A finals appearance after 14 years topped it off.
Panthers coach Travis Hodgson said while a finals win would have been nice, they were still really proud of what they had achieved.
“Overall after the last few years, it’s successful to have a finals team for the first time in 14 years,” he said.
“The goal was to win nine games and we won 10 games. We ticked a lot of boxes.
“Winning a final means we would have had three finals which would have been huge.
“It’s still a good season as a whole.”
The Panthers season ended with a finals loss to Macedon in an elimination final.
Hodgson said the first quarter and Jason Cooke, who kicked four first quarter goals, were the difference.
He said a lack of finals experience showed early on.
Having Marlion Pickett being a late out and Sam Darley playing under duress with a hamstring injury didn’t help their side’s hopes either.
“Credit to them, they set up really well and defended the space which our game is built around,” Hodgson said.
“We didn’t have any overlap out there.
“It did look like we were nervous early in the match and there was a lot of fumbling.”
Individually, the Panthers had some success as well.
Alec Goodson claimed the league leading goalkicker medal after being set to give the game away.
Darley is set to be among the contenders come Bowen Medal night
Hodgson has already signed on for next season as they look to have some consistency in what they do.
He said they were set to retain most of their squad which they can build on.
Pickett will be one departure as he heads back to Western Australia.
“We’ll probably retain the whole list but Marlion as he has moved home,” he said.
“He’s hard to replace but it frees up some room in the cap and we have more players points with players dropping down.
“I would say everyone that played in the final will be there again next year. We have a really good platform and with keeping the coaching staff we’ve got some stability.
“We’ll see what we can add next season.”
Hodgson said the platform they had set meant they had gone from expecting to lose no matter what they put in, so getting those wins on the board
He said they want to take it and run with it next year.
“Here’s a lot of kids as well,” he said.
“Lachlan Pritchard is 18, Bryce Kerney, Joel Hodgson are 19 They will really improve in the next 12 months.”
