Upwey tears turn to joy

By Kath Gannaway
THERE were tears of joy at the Upwey-Tecoma clubrooms on Sunday as the under-14s heard they were officially joint winners of the 2011 grand final.
One week before the tears were of frustration and disappointment as the boys and supporters saw their two-point win against Healesville disappear in a controversial end to a grand final in which they had persevered to peg Healesville back in the dying minutes of the game.
At an executive meeting on Thursday night the Dandenong Ranges Junior Football League awarded dual premierships after considering the sequence of events that saw a goal kicked after the siren.
Those events were confirmed in a statement issued by the league on Monday.
The final siren at the Woori Yallock ground sounded with Upwey Tecoma two points ahead but the umpires failed to hear the siren as the timekeepers failed to keep the siren going.
At that moment of the first siren a Healesville player marked the ball, he then kicked the ball to a teammate who marked it as the siren sounded a second time some six seconds later with the controlling umpire indicating full time.
The Healesville player had a shot on goal and Healesville won the match by four points.
DRJFL president John Myers said that in the end it was human error and an unfortunate situation, which, he said, the league believed needed a fair result for both teams.
“What transpired was not the fault of the umpires but human error with both clubs’ timekeepers in the time box,” he said.
“The executives gathered all the facts after speaking to those involved and viewing the video, which clearly includes the two final sirens.
“We came to a decision to award dual premiers to Healesville and Upwey Tecoma under-14 teams for season 2011,” Myers said.
Both clubs acknowledged the decision with Upwey-Tecoma president Jamie Dowling saying that both teams had played good, clean, hard football.
“It was played in the spirit of the game and common sense has prevailed,” he said.
Healesville president Grant Tacey said the club was happy with the decision.
“To finish in a grand final showed both teams’ commitment throughout the year. When we played each other in the home and away season it was also a great match.”
At the Upwey-Tecoma clubrooms on Sunday the club officials were determined to give the boys an opportunity to recapture some of the elation of that grand final win, announcing the news at the club’s AGM.
Coach Mal McKern told the ecstatic team they had shown great sportsmanship in dealing with a massive disappointment after the game and in the past week.
“You did really well,” he said. “You took it in your stride and this is just desserts for your achievement,” he said.
Players Lachlan Hughes and Dylan Comber said they were excited and happy with the outcome.
“It was totally unexpected,” Lachlan said. “We knew we had won on the day, but we wouldn’t have wanted to take it off Healesville now because they had a really good season,” he said.
“We just thought we would try again next year and push ourselves even harder (but) this is a bit of a surprise … really unexpected,” said Dylan.
The league will make changes to the by-laws for future finals.
“As a league we now look at how to best address the issue of timekeepers and look at making changes for next year’s finals by either adding a league executive in the time box as a third party or possibly employing official timekeepers,” Myers said.
The matter will be dealt with at the league’s AGM in November with all clubs having input to any changes to the new by-laws.