By Brad Kingsbury
PROMOTION or relegation is on the line this weekend when the Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League takes on the Hampden League for the Pool B VCFL title at Berwick.
The winner will replace the West Gippsland Latrobe league in Pool A of the annual country championships, while the loser will slip back to Pool C, adding incentive to win the oneoff game at 1pm on Sunday.
The initial squad of 55 has been reduced to 30 for tomorrow night’s final training run, with coach Jon Gahan to announce a 22man team at a team dinner that evening.
Beaconsfield ruckman Chris Kelf and Tooradin onballer Beau Miller have been omitted due to injury, but the majority of the initial squad indicated their keenness to play.
The Sharks will field a strong and competitive side and players expected to lead the charge to the top grade include Pakenham’s Michael Holland and Jared Goldsack, together with Narre Warren stars Ricky Clark, Michael Collins and coach Aussie Jones (pending confirmation of his fitness).
Lions captain Justin Sutherland is likely to share the ruck duties with Mt Eliza’s Chris Edgar while Doveton defender Brad Downe, who has carried the Sharks’ back line over the last two campaigns, will likely get a hand from Hastings full back Michael Agnello and ROC centre halfback Ben Waite.
Gahan said the change back from the roundrobin format over two days to the conventional single game would alter the way he set the side up, but it had not affected the approach, which is to win at the best level and get back into the top division.
“Football is all about outcomes. But this is a cultural thing and there is no way the biggest country football league in the state should play in the third division of the VCFL championships, so we will be going all out to make sure that is not the case this weekend,” he said.
The Hampden interleague side will be coached by David Cassidy and his initial squad has also been depleted by injuries.
Key players out of contention include former AFL now Port Fairy star Brad Sholl, together with Simon O’Keefe, Ben Goodall, (Koroit), Frank Matthews, Josh Walters (Port Fairy), Damian O’Connor (TerangMortlake), Bryan Beinke and former Pakenham and MPNFL player Ben Kilday, who is now playing with South Warrnambool.
Among the talent likely to take the field for the visitors are Ben Harris, Steven Sinnott, James Gellie (Camperdown) Stephen Dickenson, Brett Taylor (Cobden), Joe McLaren, Chris McLaren, Mark Bowman (Koroit), Brad McCosh, (Port Fairy), Robbie Gregg, Danny Finn (South Warrnambool) and Matthew Irving, Pat Heffernan and Matthew Schrama, (TerangMortlake).
Cassidy said he was confident of a good showing despite the unavailability of key players.
An under18 interleague curtainraiser will start at 10.50am, while 17andunder and senior representative netball sides from both leagues will also compete starting at 11.30am and 1pm respectively.
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