Swimming the lakes

by PAUL DAFFEY

IF you've spent the recent long weekend anywhere near Lakes Entrance Football Club, it's understandable that you're feeling worn out, with legs heavier than Stevie Wright after ploughing through a Lake Oval gluepot. The Seagulls had a premiership reunion for five teams, a round of matches against the competition pace-setter, and finished the weekend with a heist on the bookies. Things should always be this frantic on the beautiful Gippsland Lakes!

The main occasion was a 20-year reunion of the five Lakes Entrance teams that won East Gippsland Football League premierships on one glorious day in 1988. The Age was reliably informed that these teams were the first, seconds, thirds, fourths and fifths.

The festivities began at the Lakes Entrance surf club on the Friday night, watching a DVD of the grand finals. All these years later, the final siren of the senior match still went with the Seagulls 37 points ahead of Wy Yung. Go you Seagulls!

Saturday afternoon was the low point. The Seagulls' senior players gave themselves a good chance against top team, Bairnsdale, only to lose by 10 goals. Andrew Dear, the 16-year-old son of Hawthorn premiership ruckman Greg, provided one of his team's few highlights with an encouraging performance on a wing.

But the loss, which left the Seagulls third on the ladder, failed to dampen the spirits of 1988 premiership players who had travelled from as far as Queensland and Western Australia. A crowd of almost 400 attended the dinner dance that night.

The fun continued the next day with a family day, which is a quaint country-footy term for a day on which the men split into one camp and women split into another. This function was enough to see out most Seagulls supporters - except for those in the Royal Lakes syndicate.

The seven-year-old gelding is owned by half a dozen Seagulls committeemen, including the two O'Donnell brothers, Shane and Damian, and their father Frank. Shane and Damian and their wives drove the 400 kilometres to Melbourne while the rest of the syndicate, in a concession to a hectic weekend, headed to the Central Hotel in Lakes Entrance to watch the race on telly.

Trainer Terry Kelly, once a handy country footballer himself, had given the word that the horse was right. After a year of standing in a paddock to get over injuries (why don't footballers use this method?), Royal Lakes looked primed to reward the syndicate's patience.

Hopes looked to be in vain when the gelding was checked 100 metres from the finish. But he then pounced through a gap to steal the race by a half-head - at $12.70! The Central Hotel was full of arms in the air. At the track, Shane O'Donnell remembered the words of champion former Bairnsdale footballer Chris Redenbach.

Redenbach had told him that owning a city winner beats playing in a country premiership team. On the drive back to Lakes Entrance yesterday, O'Donnell was still unsure. But he was willing to give the matter more thought.

This story first appeared in The Age.

9 July 2008

If you'd like to comment on this story email us and we'll put your contribution on our new-look letters & comments page.

australianrules.com.au

Disclaimer