Week two of the Juniors finals series kicked off on Sunday with 5 BFC teams playing in Grand Finals and 8 playing in Prelim Finals.
From those games we collected 3 Premierships and a further 4 teams joining our U17.5 Div Boys in Grand Finals this coming Sunday. (refer to the graphic)
The Grand Final winners were the U11 Div 2 Boys, The U13 Div 1 Girls and The U13 Div 1 Boys.
Unfortunately, the U12 Div 1 Boys and the U12 Div1 Girls both suffered narrow defeats. Jack Dyer’s U12 Boys were very brave against the No 1 ranked team Prahran, going down by a miserly 2 points. However, this was a great result for our boys coming up from Div 2 last year where they finished 3rd. So that’s a mighty progression. Well done to Prahran.
The U12 Girls, who are used to playing on the wider spaces of Beauy Sec, couldn’t get their running game going at all on the tight JL Murphy Reserve. Plus, the League decided to up playing numbers to 18 for the final, which created a game of massive congestion, not suited to our girls. When the ball did come out of the pack, East Malvern were quick to convert. In the end 10 points separated the 2 teams. Congrats to East Malvern.
The U11Div 2 Boys clung on to win a tight one against East Brighton. It was gripping stuff right down to the final siren our boys holding on to win by 3 points. Well done to Ollie Ward and his team on a tremendous win. They were the No 1 ranked team all season and deserved their trophy.
The U13 Div1 Girls were on a mission after missing out narrowly last year, particularly Macey Backman who had a point to prove. Well, she was brilliant in a great display by the whole team. Macey’s 2 goals bought her tally to an incredible 26 for the season. It was a well deserved Premiership by this team who have played great footy all season. Congrats to Matt and the girls.
Similar to the U13 Girls, the U13 Div 1 Boys bowed out last year in a final largely due to not handling the terrible weather conditions on the day. They were stunned. So, from day one of the 2023 season these guys enacted a strategy they devised in pre-season to not let anything like that or anything else get in their way. Fifteen Rounds and two finals later these boys remain undefeated, in Division 1. They won their Grand Final by a significant margin and in doing so confirmed themselves as one of the best teams in the League. Super effort by all the boys and congrats to Captains Liam Basil and Jack Henderson and Coaches Justin Plapp and Dean Henderson.
Commiserations to those teams who bowed out in the Prelim Finals. Well done!
Best of luck to the 5 teams in Grand Finals on Sunday. Let’s get out and show plenty of Shark support for our teams.
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Come on Sharks, LETS DO IT!
