 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Last night saw the Bayside Men take out the closest State League Final anyone can remember. By how much??? HALF A POINT!!!!! It couldn't have been scripted better. We never led the comp 'til the final result.
But I'm getting too far ahead of myself. The best way to tell this story is to start in the beginning.
We started the night 16.5 points down on Glenhuntly.
400mH
Brendan Cole kicked off us with a victory, with Glenhuntly in fourth. Brendan did a great job of winning every 400mH in State League this season. Next up was 16 year old Justin Ramirez. I'll admit we were worried about whether he could handle the bigger sticks as he hadn't qualified last time. No need to worry here. Justin produced a PB by a second over any height (55.90) and captured second in his heat.
SCORE? The gap had closed to 4.5 points
3k Walk
This was always gonna be a tough one. Simon Baker's a distance walker and 3k is like a sprint. Simon walked brilliantly however secured third behind the two Glenhuntly guns.
SCORE? The gap blows out to 18.5
High Jump
Peter Hoggan missed warm up and took a while to get going. He ended up getting over 2m, the same as the Glenhuntly dude but dipped out on countback.
SCORE? 21.5 points down
Hammer
Hans Lotz was second and most importantly the Hunters couldn't find a qualifier.
SCORE? The gap was now only 11.5
200m
We tipped a sub-22s for Justin Lewis, and of course he delivered (21.92), injuring himself in a desperate lunge at the line to secure second. Bo Betts ran exactly as we expected with yet another 22.3 and a strong second - sweet. Nfa Forster-Jones pulled out a fast one (22.29) and again came second. The good thing here was it wasn't Glenhuntly guys beating us.
SCORE? I think it was now down to 1.5 points
Long Jump
Matt Woodruff gave us palpitations by fouling his first two as did Nabil from Glenhuntly. Both managed safety jumps on the last, with Nabil winning as expected.
SCORE? 4.5 points down
5000m
This was always gonna be a tough one. Glenhuntly had the big guns out. Our guys needed to put it up to them. And they did. Marty Fedmowski shadowed them throughout and was only outkicked on the last lap. It was definitely Marty's best run in Bayside colours and he was rewarded with a PB(?) of 14.29. Young Clint Perrett went with Marty as long as he could, finishing 5th in a PB 14.59. Chris Muirden ran very sensibly to ensure he'd hold on to sixth.
SCORE? It was back to 16.5 points down
110mH
Nfa Forster-Jones wasn't about to lose. 14.9 seconds later he was right. Aaron Petersen overcome his hamstring worries, smashed a couple and just held on for first in the second heat. Thanks to Liam Wallis for warming up in case Aaron wasn't up for it.
SCORE? 10.5 points down
800m
Glenhuntly had Olympic qualifier Kris McCarthy flown back from South Africa for this one. We had our guys drive from down the road. And it was worth it. Our guys got up near the front from the start and did their best to stay there. Neil Brennan managed to still end up boxed in, but extricated himself Grant Cremer-style and streaked down the home straight only to get outdipped for second. Tony Wilson and Paul Jamieson made sure the rest of the Glenhuntly guys were further back than they'd hoped.
SCORE? 8.5 points behind the Boomeranged boys
4x400m Relay
We had to beat Glenhuntly here to be any chance going into the last event. Justin Lewis had to pull out due to his 200m tumble. Nfa put his hand up to make his State League debut over the distance. Our high jumper Peter Hoggan got us off well with a 50.s opener. Nfa was next up and held on for another 50.s split. Glenhuntly were in front of us! Evan Rees lives for these moments and he set off at breakneck speed passing the Hunters with about 180m to go. Then it happened. Al Tait(Glenhuntly) clipped Ev's heels and fell. He bounced up almost immediately but a gap had developed. Brendan got the baton about 20 metres in front of Kris McCarthy and he wasn't about to be run down.
SCORE? 5.5 points down
Discus
It had come to this. Discus had been delayed due to cage problems. A big crowd headed off to cheer on the ever-shy Matt Brown. The points scenario was that he had to beat the Glenhuntly thrower by two places. Matt assured his victory with a big 49.5m first throw. Now it was down to watching the other throwers. We were cheering on Marty Durisca of Eastside and hoping Glenhuntly Andrew Martin wouldn't work out how to translate his enormous jav throws to the disc. He didn't, Marty produced the goods, and Jussie was soon spraying champagne everywhere.
So that's the story.
This is an enormous achievement. Glenhuntly haven't won for about 8 years. The Bayside combine has never won one. Sandy folk remember winning in 1958 (Roy was hurdling!!!). Only extremely talented, dedicated and well managed teams pull this off.
We only returned to State League competition last year. At the time it wasn't clear how the team would be organised (or by whom). No one appeared to have thought about who'd be running, throwing, jumping etc on a week-to-week basis. Our goal in the first year could only be avoiding relegation. We added another goal of developing a "team". The website was a small part of that. Getting folk to turn up each week was another. Getting coaches and clubs interested was the most important. Clearly this has happened. We just missed finals last year, and that was a godsend. It was huge consolation to see our team members extremely disappointed at the outcome. We started this season with a belief we would be a top club, that finals would happen, and that we'd be in contention for the flag. And we were right.
OK, despite this report already looking like a novel, it is time for some thanks.
Thanks to all the athletes. I'll start with two athletes who missed finals action:
- Stu Laidlaw has given his all for this team and was desperately unlucky to miss finals action with an injury.
- Tommy Farr was invaluable to our efforts, the fourth highest scorer over the home and away season. He suffers from the one field competitor rule and was emergency in javelin and high jump.
Likewise, a huge gracias to all who competed this season. Here's a list: Nfa Forster-Jones, Tony Wilson, Brendan Cole, Tommy Farr, Justin Lewis, Stuart Laidlaw, Aaron Neighbour, Aaron Petersen, Neil Brennan, Nick Baltas, Bo Betts, Matt Woodruff, Hans Lotz, Matt Brown, Evan Rees, Tim Matthews, Chris Muirden, Simon Baker, Cameron Grant, Leon D'Onofrio, Liam Wallis, Andrew Jones, Clinton Perrett, Dorijan Klasnic, Paul Jamieson, Peter De La Haye, Paul Groves, Peter Hoggan, Marty Fedmowski, Dave McCaffrey, Steve Graham, Thomas Moorhouse, Nick Silver, James Pellicano, Justin Hanrahan, David Stones, Andrew Reid, Roger Moresi, Adrian Harvey and Justin Ramirez.
A big thanks to all the coaches, club officials and regular supporters. I'm reluctant to name names here as I'll no doubt miss someone. You know who you are, and hopefully you find yourself in the photos of our victory celebrations (whenever I get them developed).
Thanks also to the women's team members who have cheered us on. You lot are next. This winning thing rocks and hopefully is contagious.
Thanks to our kind uniform sponsors Brooks. We looked good in victory (except maybe for Matty Brown).
Last, but so far from least, the most enormous of "Bless you dude"s must go to the hardest working team manager in athletics, the man who spends a fortune of phonecalls making sure we fill events each week, who made huge steps in developing Bayside as a team, who secured us our snazzy team uniforms, who introduced us to Zorba's, who had to make some gut-wrenching selection decisions, Mr. Justin Hanrahan. Thanks Jussie.
Good luck to all in their winter pursuits.
Results are here.
The report from week one of the finals is here.