PASSIONATE Hampden interleague team member Joe McLaren drew the curtain on his distinguished representative career after the Bottle Green’s loss to Mornington Peninsula Nepean last Saturday at Camperdown. After six years representing the league, McLaren said his time was up. “I stood in the middle of the ground after the siren and thought ‘gees I’m really going to miss this’,” he said. “I love my interleague footy. It’s the best footy you can play when you aren’t playing for your club. It’s the best some blokes around this area ever get to play.” McLaren said he was approaching 33 years of age. “I don’t want to stand in the road of a young bloke playing interleague footy. I’ve had a fair old run. It’s opened a lot of doors for me. I met some very good mates out of playing interleague that I would never have met and it opened the Vic Country doors as well.” McLaren has represented the VCFL every year he has played interleague, captaining and vice-captaining the team at the national championships. His highlight was leading the VCFL to a national country championship on the Gold Coast in 2006 when he kicked a goal from the centre square with only seconds left to level the scores and force the game into extra time. He then kicked two of the VCFL’s three goals in the extra period.
PORTLAND coach Winis Imbi was yesterday hit with a $500 fine for suggesting if the Tigers had a chance to cross from the Western Border league to the Hampden they would seriously consider it after he was frustrated with a light tribunal penalty. Imbi, in The Standard last
week, criticised the four-week ban handed by the Western Border tribunal to West Gambier’s Jarrod Ryan for a behind-the-play hit on Tiger Stephen O’Brien, who suffered $20,000 worth of dental damage. The league last night revealed Imbi’s fine for what it described as a “media outburst”. League chief executive David Heard said a further $500 fine had been suspended until the end of the season. “Whilst we accept the concerns are genuine, using the media as first point of contact to criticise the league’s independent tribunal, umpires and board is not acceptable,” Heard said. “Winis is an individual of excellent character who has been a long-standing and loyal servant of our league, and these factors were taken into account in our judgement. However, we hope these penalties serve as a reminder to everyone associated with the WBFL that we have appropriate structures in place to address grievances, and that the correct protocol should be observed at all times.”
THE promotional opportunities for Hampden’s return to interleague competition last weekend would have been greatly enhanced if the host league had received advanced warning of the presence of Michael Voss among the Mornington Peninsula Neapean entourage. It also came as a surprise to local media sharing facilities at Leura Oval when Voss chose to join them, before calling through match updates to Mornington Peninsula community radio station 3RPP. The other surprise was that Voss didn’t resemble his Brisbane Lions namesake, who was hundreds of kilometres away preparing his team for a round nine AFL encounter with the Adelaide Crows. Voss has been calling
Peninsula league games with 3RPP for about nine years, although there was no live radio broadcast of Saturday’s match from his station or the local equivalent, 3WAY FM.
HFNL president Bob Guiney has acknowledged a growing rivalry with Mornington Peninsula Nepean and it comes as little surprise looking at recent VCFL Country Championships history between the leagues. Hampden has encountered the MPNFL five times since 2000 and three times in its last five outings. “We have a great rivalry with Mornington Peninsula Nepean,” Guiney said after a 22.12 (144) to 14.11 (95) loss. “We keep running into them and getting to know them. They’ve given us their hand in friendship and we’ve reciprocated.”
THEY talk about houses being sold for more than they are expected as auction bidders get carried away with the chase, the same can now be said of sporting auctions. The Hampden league raised more than $1000 to support the work of breast cancer nurse Rebecca Hay and the Jane McGrath Foundation in round five. The tin rattle got a significant kick-a-long with Camperdown auctioning the match football and netball from its senior matches against Port Fairy. With the Magpies holding a premiership reunion that day, the love was extended beyond team mates to the cause with the pink footy being knocked down for $240 — more than double the cost of a match Sherrin and the pink netball going for $200 — a huge premium on the retail cost.
UMPIRES and players in last week’s interleague game wore white armbands and carried slogans to promote a Justice Department campaign against family violence. Warrnambool umpire Casey O’Keefe carried the slogan “enough” which VCFL vice-president Gerard Lucas raised at a pre-game function. He said domestic and family violence was an issue across country Victoria. “The board of the VCFL believe we, through the leagues and clubs, can make a difference in communities by making people aware it is not acceptable in the community,” he said. “We are supporting a state government campaign which aims to raise awareness that family and domestic violence is not acceptable in today’s society and that if they see it, to respond to it.”
DENNINGTON has three footballers celebrating milestones tomorrow. Reserves players Brad Russell and senior duo Mick Morrison and Luke Duncan will all join the 150-game club after clashing with Russells Creek at Dennington Reserve.
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