By Mikayla van Loon
Senior football has reached new heights in Kilsyth with both the men’s and women’s teams making their grand final debut.
In just three seasons, the women’s side built a competitive edge to finish on top of the division three ladder, while the men’s side will play in its first grand final in almost 30 years.
Taking on the Eastern Devils, who finished second on the ladder, on Saturday 26 August, the women’s team will be met with a high quality competitor.
Knowing the capabilities of the Eastern Devils who “play a pretty tough standard of footy”, senior women’s coach Quentin Van Veen said despite the excitement of playing in their first grand final, he expects the team will approach it like any other game.
“I’d expect [the Devils to] come out really strong, it was a very tough first quarter last time [we played],” he said.
“I’m expecting the same thing, I’m expecting it to be a tough half and it will be decided by who wants it more in the third and fourth quarters, I imagine.”
Van Veen noted it was a shaky start to the season with some key players moving elsewhere but said it was a testament to the junior girls and those who stayed on for showing such perseverance.
“The girls have worked really hard off the track and on the track to build the team work as well as the football skills to be able to continue to improve their footy and enjoy their footy throughout the year,” he said.
“About halfway through the season, the team really started to gel together and improve their skills and deliver much better performances on the park and put together a bit of a winning streak over the past eight or so weeks.”
At the halfway mark, Van Veen said it was then that the team worked on game structure “with a focus on the style we wanted to play”.
“We transitioned to teaching a style of play, allocated positions on the field and girls started to really embrace the team element of footy not just the individual skills element, I think that’s really what’s made the difference,” he said.
Also scoring the season’s minor premiership, Kilsyth’s senior men are yet to see who they will play in the grand final on Sunday 3 September, with the preliminary final seeing Surrey Park and Scoresby face off on 27 August.
Senior coach Simon Caldwell said finishing on top of the ladder for the first time in 71 years was a confidence boosting result for the football club.
“Kilsyth has never finished on top of the ladder since 1962 so that was a little achievement that we wanted to tick off,” he said.
Playing Surrey Park in the first final, Caldwell said the team came close to losing but were able to pull out in front just in time to finish 60 to 48 sending them straight through to the grand final.
Building on the club’s mantra of being a family and community first club to develop and work with the players who come through juniors, Caldwell said it took some time to get it right but it led to a finals chance last year.
“It was a big stepping stone I guess to where the club has been for the last couple of years,” he said.
With at least half the senior side having played juniors at Kilsyth and a handful of other players having family or community connections to the club, Caldwell attributes it to “not just being successful but being a great place to be off the field as well”.
Despite having high hopes of a potential grand final win, Caldwell said the lead up will be about taking the pressure off and going about training as usual.
“It’s an exciting couple of weeks. At the end of the day a grand final is a great opportunity but you’ve still got to treat it like any other game, we’ve still got to train, we’ve still got to do what we do well, and enjoy these couple of weeks.”
With both teams set for promotion to higher divisions should they win, it would be history in the making for the club.
“With the ability to play and potentially win a grand final, they’ll get a lot of confidence out of it,” Van Veen said of the women’s.
“And with the opportunity to go to the second division next year, so the winning side moves up a division, we’re confident that we’ve been able to put together a program to teach the girls to a very good standard.”
“We’ve maybe got to where we are quicker than we thought three years ago when we started the 2021 season, but the aim was always to get to third division,” Caldwell said.
“We feel we’re one of probably only a couple of clubs in fourth division that are ready to take a step up to third division and stay there.”
Having played all season at home with temporary facilities as the new club rooms get built, Van Veen said it could have been a breaking factor for the club this season but it’s only made them stronger.
“We’ve been in temporary digs all year and although it would have been very easy for a lot of people to complain about what we were putting up with while we wait for our new facility, the club has really stuck together and generated a real team atmosphere.
“And also in a year that could have been a pretty tough one for us, we’ve delivered a netball team into the finals and two senior football teams in the grand finals.
“That’s been a remarkable result for a club that could have had a tough year.”
