The Year of the Tiger!

2010 turned out to be the year of the Tiger with Foster seniors breaking a 17 year premiership drought when they defeated Stony Creek at Inverloch on Saturday in the Alberton Football League Grand Final. The Foster netballers also did well, with three victories from three games!

The matches were played before a huge crowd which paid $34,718 at the gate, believed to be a record, although prices had increased since last year.

The day started off a bit messy with cars lining up the night before getting blocked in by a second line of cars which arrived early Saturday morning. The chaos was soon sorted out by security and gate officials, but tempers did get the better of some patrons.

The Allies Football Club had the job of catering for the day, and they were kept busy eventually runnng out of supplies.

A couple of fans were escorted from the ground before the main game, due to some skirmishes, but generally the day was incident free.

AFL president John Schelling said he was extremely pleased with how the day went and also extremely pleased with the efforts of the hosts, Inverloch-Kongwak Football Club.

He also offered his congratulations to the Foster Football Club and all the other winners on the day.

The VCFL also congratulated the Alberton League on the presentation of the day.

Foster had been the standout side all season and thoroughly deserved their victory. It was a culmination of a lot of hard work by the club, coach Dean Duursma and the players who made a statement 12 months ago that they would stick together, get fitter and have a real crack at playing finals football.

With a good blend of local players and imports, six of Saturday’s team are now premiership players like their fathers – Shem Hawking (Les), Jake Best, (Robert), Josh Bowman (Lloyd), John Williams (Wayne), Tom Bartholomew (Michael) and Brendon Weston (Peter).

The match was of a high standard, despite a strong crosswind that caused both sides problems kicking for goals. There were some fantastic marks, great individual performances and great ball skills on display by both sides.

In the end the Tigers stood firm and won by 24 points, 13-20 to 11-8. After the Tigers started their celebrations out in the middle of the ground, it was great to see the sportsmanship of the Stony Creek players who all walked into the huge Foster huddle to shake hands with everyone. A top gesture by all concerned!

Inverloch-Kongwak reserves reversed their second semi final result over Korumburra-Bena to win well, while the ‘Burra thirds had a big win over Yarram thirds who had done extremely well to make the grand final from sixth position.

Dalyston fourths were too strong for Kilcunda Bass in a low scoring match.

Huge crowds witnessed the keenly fought netball games with Dalyston coming out as A grade premiers, while Foster won B, C and 13 and unders to make it a great weekend for the Foster town.

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