William Buck Premier Men’s 2026 Season Preview – PART 1

The 2025 William Buck Premier Men’s season was another for the ages, with the minor premiership, fourth spot and relegation all decided on the final afternoon of the home & away campaign, before Old Brighton ultimately triumphed to win their first top-flight flag in their 68-year VAFA history.

So what does season 2026 have in store? We can’t wait to find out!

Let’s take a look at our first five teams as they prepare for Round 1 this Saturday:

UNIVERSITY BLACKS (8^th: 8-10)

Uni Blacks had a rollercoaster third season back in Premier Men’s in 2025, but showed that their best football was good enough to challenge the best teams.

However, for a third straight season, they faceplanted out of the blocks.

They lost 4 of their first 5 to shape as an early relegation contender, before suddenly clicking to peel off 5 straight wins – including victories over both Grand Finalists, Old Brighton and Old Scotch. And no Blacks fan will ever forget their ‘Miracle on Grass’ win over SKOB that saw them boot 3 goals in 3 minutes from the 31-minute mark of the final quarter!

But just as they appeared to be firming as a genuine finals threat, their mojo disappeared and they fell away to win just 2 of their last 8, with those two victories over the two relegation teams, Collegians and De La Salle.

Coach Dale Bower realised that his list needed more quality.

“We had some great performances, but we needed to increase our depth of talent.”

Dale and his recruiting team certainly got to work, bringing in a flotilla of new faces, with the headliners being former AFL-listed players Zaine Cordy and Thomson Dow (North VFL in 2026), along with talented VFL performers Max Geddes (Sydney VFL), Sam Conway (ex-Werribee) and Harry Broderick (ex-Richmond VFL).

INS: Zaine Cordy, Thomson Dow, Max Geddes, Sam Conway, Harry Broderick, Harrison Kelly, Lachlan Knight, Patrick Smith, Ted O’Brien, Tom Chalkley, Ethan Preston, Johnny Pring, Achilles Panopoulos

OUTS: Fred Valpied, Sam McKenzie, Angus Rana

Big V rep Kane Loftus has signed with Richmond VFL, while Ben Stephenson and Leon Alao are with Sandringham. How much footy Blacks get out of these three may prove to be important.

Dale Bower spent the summer focusing on the athletic development of his players and improving their system – critical given the number of new faces.

“We won 8 games in 2025, and we expect to win more in 2026 and challenge for finals,” says Bower, in his typical straight-to-the-point fashion.

Their 2026 draw gives them a chance to gel early and finally get away to a better start, so they are not having to ‘chase’ their season, given they only face one 2025 finalist in the first six rounds – Old Brighton in Round 4.

And they’ll want to be banking regular wins to get ahead of the curve, and set themselves up for a testing run home, given their final 5 rounds will see them face St Kevin’s (Away), Old Xavs (home), Old Trinity (away), Old Scotch (away) and Old Haileybury (home).

ST BERNARD’S (7^th: 7-10-1)

Having dominated Premier B with a perfect undefeated campaign in 2023, the Snowdogs have managed to dig deep and survive their two seasons back in Premier Men’s.

Having overcome crippling injuries to finish 8th in 2024 with a 5-13 record, they looked destined for relegation in 2025, unable to topple anyone other than the winless De La Salle between Rounds 4 and 16.

At that stage, the Dogs languished inside the drop zone on percentage, but managed to escape the hangman’s noose with two remarkable wins over finals contenders in the last two rounds.

A phenomenal 83-point victory over Old Haileybury was followed by a 34-point come-from-behind win over an undermanned SKOB, in which St Bernard’s performed the Great Escape to leap over Collegians and the Blues to safety.

Now entering their third consecutive season in Premier Men’s, Steve Alessio’s squad has developed sufficient chemistry and experience at the top level to begin aiming higher. He knows his team needs to reduce the gap between their best and worst.

“At our best we are very good, but we need to build depth for greater consistency,” said the former Essendon premiership player.

“Our overall ball use has been a focus, as has the continued development of our Reserves and younger players, so they are prepared for when their opportunity to play Seniors arrives.

“I’m expecting an exciting season with even more VFL players in the competition, so this will ensure the standard of footy is high.

“We expect to continue to develop and improve in our third year in Premier Men’s. The push to get out of the bottom half of the ladder and consistently perform against seasoned Premier clubs is our next step.”

2025 Big V representative Ben Ablett features among the arrivals at the Snake Pit, which will be jumping as always throughout 2026.

INS: Ben Ablett, Ben Overman, Jordy Farrell, Tom Zafiropoulos

OUTS: Edyn Sibbald, Mick Caven, Dom Sullivan, Joey Agresta, Dom Iermano

But the Doggies will need to click into stride immediately, given their challenging start to the season. They face both Grand Finalists in the first two weeks (Old Brighton away, then Old Scotch at home), followed by fellow finalist St Kevin’s in Round 3.

They will be the Road Dogs early, with just 2 of their first 6 at home, but that means they will be at home for 3 of their last 4 at the back-end of the season.

Steve Alessio will be hoping for greater consistency, given they won just 1 of their first 7 home games last season, after being winless on the road in 2024.

Is this the season they settle into playing consistently good footy and challenge the top half of the table?

UNIVERSITY BLUES (6^th: 7-11)

By the end of the 2025 home & away season, Uni Blues pretty much held their ground from 2024.

They went 7-11 to finish 6th that season, then went 6-10-2 in 2025 to finish 8th under first-year coach Matt Smith.

But those numbers don’t tell the full story, and the Blues were – at times – considerably better than their win-loss record suggested.

For example, they won just 2 of their first 11 games to sink their season before it really got started.

However, 4 of those matches were decided by 2 points or less – and the Blues lost 2 of them (to St Bernard’s by 1pt in Rd.1 & 2pts to Xavs in Rd.7) and drew 2 of them (St Bernards R9 & Collegians R10).

Despite not winning any of those 4 nailbiters, they recovered well enough to still be a mathematical chance of playing finals with 2 rounds to play, after stirring victories over Old Haileybury, Old Scotch and arch-rivals Uni Blacks.

However, at the same time, they were also still a chance to be relegated.

Fortunately for the Blues, despite being handily defeated by the Top 2 teams in the final fortnight, other results went their way, and they survived relegation by half-a-game.

So, as it turned out, those frustrating back-to-back mid-season draws ultimately kept them in Premier Men’s!

Matt Smith enters Year 2 of his tenure keen to further explore the potential of his young group.

“We’ve had a lot of work to do as a coaching group and playing group if we want to be competitive at the top end of the table.

“The upside is that we believe there is a lot of growth in the young playing group we have. We’ve focused on our fitness, ball movement and the connection between our forward, midfield and defensive lines.

“We’re expecting more consistent performances, and to decrease the gap between our best footy and our worst.”

Their headline inclusion is former West Coast and Port Adelaide AFL midfielder Brad Ebert, who finished up as Carlton’s Head of Development at the end of last season, but will bring plenty of coaching and development experience to the group.

INS: Max Irving, Brad Ebert

OUTS: Matt Crocker, Hamish Yunghanns

The competition’s leading disposal winner in 2025, ball magnet Darcy Chirgwin, has featured prominently in Sandringham’s VFL line-up through the early rounds, so it will be interesting to see how much footy he plays with the Blues this season.

If they can hit the ground running, they can build a platform for themselves in the early rounds.

Their first 3 match-ups are against the 2 teams elevated from Premier B (Old Trinity and Caulfield Grammarians), plus their old foe Uni Blacks in the Round 2 Uni Derby – always must-see TV!

All in all, the Blues were competitive enough to be knocking on the door of finals last season, and if they had have been able to close out those tight games, they likely would have featured in September.

Their next challenge is nailing that execution under pressure and seizing their opportunities to rise back into contention. If they can deliver more of their best footy and lift their floor, they have the potential to insert themselves into the finals picture once again.

OLD TRINITY (Premier B premiers 2025: 2nd (14-4), won 2SF & GF)

The T’s are back in Premier Men’s for the first time since the end of 2022, and they arrive with a shiny new premiership cup in the cabinet.

Old Trinity overcame the heartbreak of coughing up a late lead to lose the 2024 Premier B Preliminary Final (costing themselves promotion to Premier Men’s for 2025) to knuckle down and put together an impressively consistent season of quality football.

Their 4 home & away losses were well spread (Rounds 1, 6, 13 and 18), indicating they immediately bounced back and returned to their winning ways after a setback.

Their final round loss to Caulfield Grammarians cost them the minor premiership, but they also righted that wrong three weeks later, holding their nerve as the Fields rallied late on Grand Final Day, securing the T’s first senior premiership since 1999.

Now they set their sights on the top flight once again, and coach Donald McDonald believes their 2025 campaign will hold them in solid stead.

“It was great to get 15-18 games into a good block of players,” said the former Werribee premiership coach.

“We’ve lost three key leaders from 2025, so we’ve focused a lot on leadership over the summer and have expanded our leadership group.

“It will be largely driven by our players, especially the younger ones. If our young blokes don’t step up, we’ll be back in B-Grade with a rocket. De La Salle’s experience last year showed how hard Premier Men’s is. Guys like Charlie Beasley and Lachie Mulcahy are ready to step up. They have the leadership potential to join our established leaders.

“And they’ll need to. Harry Thompson has moved to England for work, and hopefully might come back later in the year. Ed Weatherson has been one of the great players in our club’s history. He’s retired, so that’s a huge loss, and we can’t just fill that hole. Hugh Beasley’s gone to Mooroolbark as an assistant coach, and we were fortunate to have him for a couple of years.

INS: Flynn McNamara, Charlie Sammartino, Camiel Bowler.

OUTS: Harry Thompson, Hugh Beasley, Ed Weatherson.

“We know we’ll come up against good sides. But that’s a great challenge. You either embrace it or be a bit insulated and get booted straight back to B-Grade.

“We have a good understanding of what we need to do gameplan-wise, and we’ll keep building on that. It’s going to be about adapting as quickly as we can. 

“So we must confront that, know what it looks like and then step up to the plate. We just have to focus on the controllables. In terms of expectations, there won’t be any on us. Our focus will be on doing. Commit to it.

“Our challenge is whether our players can handle the heat that will definitely come. We still have a lot of players on our list from the last time we were in A-Grade, and they had a pretty ordinary experience.

“I’m expecting us to be able to field a team that will compete to the best of our ability on a consistent basis this season.

“And sure, it’s easier to stay down in B or C-Grade, but we said three years ago when we were fighting just to stay in B-Grade, that we want to be a regular A-Grade team. That’s our goal. If you don’t have those expectations, what are you doing?”

The T’s will quickly get a handle on where they sit in the pecking order, given they have a ‘mixed bag’ in the first 6 rounds, including the first 3 matches on the road: Uni Blues (A), Old Xavs (A), Uni Blacks (A), St Bernard’s (H), Old Haileybury (H), Old Brighton (A).

CAULFIELD GRAMMARIANS (Premier B runners-up 2025: 3rd (12-6), won 1SF, won PF & lost GF)

Caulfield Grammarians return to William Buck Premier Men’s after two seasons in Premier B, with veteran coach Paul Satterley entering his second season at the helm.

The Fields were slow out of the blocks in 2025, dropping 3 of their first 4 under their new coach, but soon found their rhythm and emerged from a huge peloton of potential contenders in an ultra-competitive Premier B field.

They won 13 of their next 16 to power their way into a stacked Top 4, winning 2 sudden-death finals over Old Carey and Old Ivanhoe to qualify for Grand Final Day.

Old Trinity got hold of them in the second quarter of the decider, and, try as they might, the Fields couldn’t reel in the deficit in the second half to fall a couple of kicks short of their first senior flag since 2019.

However, it was enough to earn a return to the top-flight and the man universally known as ‘Satts’ believes his team is ready for the challenge.

“By year’s end, we had established a style of play that had a good balance of scoring and improved team defence,” said Satterley.

“We won 8 of our 9 home games, and we became ingrained to play out every game right to the final siren.

“Over the summer, we largely focused on improving our collective fitness, and increased our training loads and kilometres per session.

“We go into this season full of belief in ourselves. We have a very talented list, and we play a recognisable brand of footy that we trust will be very competitive each week.”

Satts will have some handy inclusions at his disposal, including prodigiously talented youngster Noah Yze, who earned a VAFA Rising Star nomination for his 20 disposal, 5-goal debut for Old Melburnians last season.

INS: Noah Yze (OMs), Ollie Wilson (Warragul), Ronan James (Sale), Kaspar Mole (Noble Park), while Archie Loughnan, Dylan Ting & Will Vesely all return from overseas exchanges.

OUTS: Will Edwards (retired), Joe McClelland (overseas), Sam McInerney (overseas), Jack Iverson (Oakleigh).

The Fields will dive straight into the deep end, with some stern challenges in the early rounds that include: Old Scotch (R1), Old Haileybury (R2), Uni Blues (R3), Old Xavs (R4) & SKOB (R5).

If they can carry forth the style and execution they displayed in the back end of their 2025 campaign, they may surprise a few early and create a handy launching pad they can continue to build upon as they did last season.

Check out PART 2 of our Season Preview for a closer look at Old Brighton, Old Scotch, Old Xaverians, St Kevin’s & Old Haileybury.

VAFA WILLIAM BUCK PREMIER MEN’S – ROUND 1

SATURDAY APRIL 18:-

St Kevin’s vs Old Xaverians (1.45pm – SEN MATCH OF THE DAY & VAFA TV)           

Old Brighton vs St Bernard’s (1.55pm – Kommunity TV & VAFA TV)       

Old Haileybury vs Uni Blacks (1.55pm – Kommunity TV)     

Old Scotch vs Caulfield Grammarians (1.55pm – VAFA TV)     

University Blues vs Old Trinity (1.55pm – Melbourne Uni Main Oval)