The sky over ANU South Oval was a bruised purple, spitting rain that had, by game time, transformed the pristine green into a treacherous, ankle-deep quagmire.
It was Round 15 of the AFL Canberra Community Men’s Division 1, and for theYass Roos, this wasn’t just another game; it was a do-or-die battle to keep their finals hopes flickering. Their opponents, theANU Griffins, were ready for a fight, but the conditions dictated a messy, grinding affair.
From the first bounce, it was clear that clean possessions would be a luxury. Players slipped and slid, the ball resembling a bar of soap, and every tackle sent sprays of mud flying. The scoreline reflected the struggle, a low-scoring slugfest where every point was hard-won. Yet, the Roos dug deep, their determination evident in every contested ball.
Roos coach Steve May, beaming after the game, declared, “The mighty Roos are flying at the moment. We beat ANU by 14 points, but it was in the slop. It was pretty convincing. It was a bloody awesome win.” Jason Monaghan and Max Shadbolt proved their worth, each slotting two crucial goals, while Ben O’Connor added another, pushing the Roos’ total to 5.10.40. Their efforts were bolstered by the relentless work of Joven May, Ryan Ulrich, Calum McCann, Sam Williams, and Jesse Monaghan, who consistently put their bodies on the line, navigating the treacherous conditions with grit.
The ANU Griffins were far from pushovers. Oscar Kaye led their charge with two goals, and Kobe Drummond and Marcus Sevior (who was also among their best players) each added a major, bringing the Griffins’ score to 4.2.26. The Griffins’ midfield, marshalled by Joel Zuccato, Phil Syrros, Adam Beer, and Olly Hicks, fought tooth and nail, refusing to yield an inch of the muddy turf.
As the final siren wailed, a collective sigh of relief, mixed with the exhaustion of battle, swept through the Yass Roos camp. They had weathered the storm, both literal and metaphorical, securing a hard-fought 14-point victory. The scoreboard read Yass Roos 5.10.40 def ANU Griffins 4.2.26.
It wasn’t pretty, but it was enough. Coach May elaborated on the significance of the win for their finals campaign: “We’ve won five out of the last six now, and the last three have all been elimination finals, so we have had to win each of them. And now one to go, and got to beat ADFA, and whoever wins that will get fourth spot.”
He acknowledged the challenge ahead with ADFA: “We’ve got them at the wrong time, probably both times. We played them in round one and now round 16, and they look like they’re pretty much at full strength now.”
Comparing their form, May noted, “Last week, they beat Eastlake; they thrashed them. We played Eastlake two weeks ago and beat them by even more than ADFA did, so the form is pretty even.” May also touched upon a contentious issue from last year’s grand final against ADFA: “We played them in the grand final last year, and a couple of weeks ago, we beat them 149-7 or something like that. They stacked their side with the second-grade players, and it just shouldn’t have been allowed. It’s a ridiculous loophole in the rules that AFL Canberra needs to fix and still hasn’t.”
He elaborated on the rule’s unfairness to community clubs like Yass: “That’s the rule, but the problem is there’s this loophole in the rules where if all of your teams are playing finals on the same weekend, that you can pick whoever you want in any grade and kind of get the logic behind that, but you’ve got to think through it a bit more because it just becomes a nonsense if that applies to community grade footy. After all, it puts Yass at a huge disadvantage because we don’t have teams in the higher grades. You can only have that rule if you’ve got the same teams in each grade.”
Reflecting on the impact of weather on games, May expressed frustration with ground closures: “It’s up to ACT Sportsgrounds, and Murrumbateman and Yass seem to follow what ACT Sportsgrounds do. Yass Valley Council usually follows them, but I think we are going to be okay because the forecast for the next few days looks pretty reasonable.”
He lamented the increasing frequency of closures: “They have been a lot more precious over the last few years. When I started playing, which is like 1997 and coaching the juniors all the way through, I reckon we went through about a 20-year period there where they might have shut the grounds on the weekend maybe once or twice, but just the last few years, it seems to be a regular occurrence. It stuffs up so many people when you close footy grounds on the weekends. It kills so many community clubs, canteen revenue, all that sort of stuff, it’s just terrible.” He added, “Last week, we were lucky to get our game in on Saturday, and then they cancelled Sunday games.”
Despite the challenges, May attributed the Roos’ success to team cohesion: “I think it’s just the group starting to gel well together. We’ve just had a lot of players hitting their best form at the right time as well, and momentum, we’re just sort of riding a wave at the moment. The lads are confident and playing some unbelievable footy.”
He highlighted the significance of their dual victories over ANU: “For us to beat ANU twice in the season is such a massive achievement, because they are a club that’s been around in this competition for a long, long time. They’ve got 70 players on their books, we’ve got fewer than 30, and it’s the first time we’ve ever been in this grade. So to beat them twice in a season is such an awesome achievement by the lads.”
Looking ahead to the finals, May outlined the potential scenarios: “We could get third. If we beat ADFA and Googong beat ANU, we could sneak into third. But it’s most likely that ANU will beat Googong, so ANU should finish third, and then it’s either us or ADFA to finish fourth.” He then detailed the finals structure: “Third plays fourth, so we play ANU in the elimination final. And then Bateman’s Bay would play Woden, the winner of Bateman’s Bay and Woden goes straight into the grand final, and then the winner of ANU and Yass would play against the loser of Bateman’s Bay and Woden in the preliminary final.”
Regarding the immediate challenge against ADFA, May stated, “ADFA is going to be a massive, massive task for us, so we are focusing on that, but if we did get through, we’d be going into the game with confidence. ANU is a very tough side. We’ve had to work hard to beat them both times. So we would be confident, but we know it’s another massive job. It would be very exciting if we got that opportunity to take on ANU again.” He acknowledged the difficulty of securing fourth place with a loss: “I think it’s almost impossible. I think we would have to have a narrow loss and then hope that Googong beat ANU by 100 points, and even then, it would be tight because ANU’s percentages are so good.”
May also reflected on their only large loss of the season: “Woden were the team that touched us up. I liken it to the comment that Damien Hardwick made; he’s the Gold Coast coach. Gold Coast had a shocker a couple of weeks ago, and he said ‘You know, every good team that I’ve coached has had a kick in the nuts at some point.’ It was like that. It was like a Mulligan. We just had a really bad day that day, and Woden were on a hot streak. They won about five games in a row by 100 points. It’s interesting because they have kind of dropped off a bit since then.”
He also found positives in their loss to Bateman’s Bay: “The game against the Bay, that’s our one loss over the last six weeks, we actually played an incredible game that day. We had no bench. We had so many players missing. And it was only one guy who got a hold of us; their full forward kicked ten, and we lost by 10 goals. We played well in that game, and we got a lot of confidence out of that because they are the team that’s going to Div One next year. They haven’t beaten us that convincingly. We were leading at quarter time. We had so many players missing, and we were really competitive against them. We got a fair bit of confidence out of that game.”
Looking ahead to the ADFA match at Murrumbateman, May concluded with optimism: “There’s no doubt that Bateman’s Bay and Woden are the best two sides. To beat them, we would be massive underdogs, but if we played our absolute best, we’d feel like anything is possible. We are on a roll at the moment. ADFA is going to be a massive challenge as well, because there’s not much between them in the top two; it’s just that ADFA has had a couple of forfeits. They beat us in round one by 40, but we beat them in the second half of that game. So once we woke up, we were pretty strong against them. It’s going to be tough. We feel like ADFA and Bateman on the small ground, that’s going to favour us, and we’ve got a really strong team in good form, so we think we’re a good chance of beating them. It should be a cracking game.”
He confirmed the venue and time: “That game will be at Murrumbateman at 12 noon. We like playing at Murrumbateman ground, we play well on that ground. It’s a tiny ground, but it seems to suit us. They are a strong, fit side. We are pretty fit as well, but for some reason, we just play well at Murrumbateman, and I think it’s just because Yass is a pretty small ground as well. The smaller grounds we are used to training on, those are where we just play them well.”
The win against ANU, a muddy testament to their resilience, has indeed kept the Yass Roos’ finals hopes firmly alive, setting the stage for a thrilling conclusion to their season.
– Tully Potts
