MAX ON MONDAY

With flag winners rarely emerging from third or fourth position, it is naturally those teams competing in second semi-finals, those who have performed best during the year, which attract the status of premiership favouritism and draw the interest. 
So it was this weekend just past and the partisans and avid aficionados returned to headquarters, drawn by the promise of two intriguing contests.
In B Section, aside from the obvious rewards of a direct route to the Grand Final, there is also at stake the bonus of immediate promotion to A Section. On Saturday, the all-Essendon affair was widely anticipated, not just by the warriors, but by those of us – I suspect many of us – who would never have ventured anyplace past Moonee Valley racecourse had it not been for football.
In VAFA football at least, it is still relatively uncommon for players to change clubs.  Yet things are evidently different out Windy Hill way.  On Saturday, three players who lined up for Old Essendon had previously worn the silks of the Snow Dogs, adding a dash of extra spice to the main course.
We have heard and seen much of St Bernard’s in recent years. Their return to A Section in 1992, their grand-final defeats in 2000 and 2003, and in between, their premiership win in 2002, all involved the one club whom the Bernies consider their greatest rival of the modern age – and it is not Old Essendon.
On the other hand, the Bombers, old boys of Penleigh and Essendon Grammar, who until this year have never shared a field with the Snowdogs, have perhaps felt a little differently. For a long time, Old Essendon has been dreaming about rising to A Section and taking them on. After dipping out in the B Section finals last year, their only consolation was that their north-western neighbour would be descending to join them.
The Bombers went in to Saturday’s game as the clear favourite. They had finished the home and away season three games clear and had spanked Bernies just two weeks ago. After Callan Potter kicked four beautiful goals in the first quarter, there was some hope in the Dogs’ camp that they could perhaps reverse that result, but it was not to be.
At quarter-time, the teams employed different huddles. The Bernies had their supporters massed close around in the traditional style. Old Essendon prevented their fans and the plain curious from any proximity to the playing group with a rope line and a couple of blokes that looked like licensed bouncers from thew King Streetnightclub circuit.
Nonetheless, after the first break, the main contests appeared to those on the mounds between members of the rival camps. There appeared little friendship across the divide and some of the banter, so I’m told, went a little beyond any liberally construed bounds of the acceptable.
On-field, the Bombers played confident and aggressive football, shaking off the demons of Elsternwick Septembers past and smashing their opponents. Never for a moment did they reveal any doubt that they would do exactly that.
As with recent B Section graduates Collegians, Old Brighton and St Bede’s Mentone Tigers, they look strong enough and big enough and good enough to compete in the top tier already. Bernies are not done yet, but they haven’t won since 9 August. They must meet and defeat a young and perhaps not- yet-quite ready-for-prime-time Marcellin to return to A Section.
If they do return to the top stratum, it will be alongside their neighbours. If the rivalry hitherto has been one of geography alone, now there will be some history too.
The A Section contest appeared a tight one and with apparently clear skies and hurricanes too busy elsewhere to bother us, a skilful affair as well. Of course, the two perfect days on end at the Park are like Camelot, simply a legend we’d like to believe. It rained for a while, rather heavily, and the ground conditions changed, though the precipitation did little to affect the outcome.
The clash was an exhibition of contrasting styles. St Bede’s Mentone Tigers, who were smacked by 15 goals when last they played the Lions, boast the highest scoring offence in the competition. Collegians, the minor premier, won that title on the back of its most miserly defence. Although they have at the goal-front the league’s leading marksman, their major weapon is not the gun, but the garrote.  They play a disciplined style that leads one to believe that Tuesday and Thursday night training involves more class-work than circle-work.
As the third quarter progressed, their scheme appeared to be finally taking hold.  After trailing at the long break, they stifled the Tigers and went to the front, giving succour and voice to those fans in the regally coloured apparel.  The contest had tilted their way. They were strangling the air out these newcomers and would surely complete the kill soon enough.
The Tigers, however, are rarely out of a game because their focus is always the next contest, not those that have gone before. They hit right back, playing football as we learned it and learned to love it: see it, chase it, knock it on, help a teammate, get it through the sticks. And do it again.
By the last break, the Tigers again led. Once again, the huddles showed a contrast. In the Bede’s camp, a goal to the good, it was restrained enthusiasm, encouragement and confidence. Sixty metres away gathered the Lions, just a goal down, only tension, instruction and uncertainty.
As it transpired, the Bede’s added another four goals and conceded just two in the final fling, thereby winning the game and advancing to their first A Section Grand Final.  They are the VAFA’s biggest story this year, and so they should be. The never before performed hat-trick of C, B and A titles in consecutive years is not only within their grasp, it is in the view of the odds-men, now probable.
Collegians, who have worn the mantle of premiership favourite since the markets opened in March, now no longer need worry about that. Their initial task now is to win their preliminary final, but like St Bernard’s, they haven’t won in a month. There is no doubt that they have the talent and wherewithal to give the Tigers a good run for the flag, but waiting are the Xavs, whose prosperous pathways are strewn with preliminary final corpses.
The views expressed above are not necessarily those of the VAFA.Max McGraw can be contacted at [email protected]