FRANKSTON Bombers were crowned 2009 MPNFL Nepean Division premiers after beating Sorrento by 37 points on Saturday.
Playing in front of a bumper crowd at Frankston Park, the Bombers hit the front for the first time at the six-minute mark of the last quarter and never looked back.
The game was ugly and there were more mistakes than memorable passages of play. However, it was a grand final and the scoreboard pressure made it an enthralling contest.
Half an hour before the game the wind picked up, giving a significant advantage to the team kicking towards the Kars Street end of the field - up to a six-goal advantage, in fact.
Sorrento skipper Dave Lawson won the toss and kicked with the wind. He kicked the first goal for the match.
MPNFL most valuable player Brian O'Carroll replied shortly after and the crowd knew it was going to be a close affair.
The Bombers managed to bottle the game up until the 20-minute mark, when a Doug Scott-inspired 60-metre bomb went through the big sticks. The Sorras kicked the next three and went into the first change with a 26-point lead.
Frankston coach Tony Blackford told his charges during the break that it was important they played smart football in the second quarter and didn't simply rely on the wind to get the ascendancy.
Sorrento coach Troy Schwarze popped 300-gamer Guy Stringer across half-back as a loose man and it worked a treat, the league life member taking telling marks.
The Bombers peppered the goals but couldn't produce a major, kicking eight points for the term. It wasn't until late in the second quarter that they kicked three goals and reduced the margin to nine points at the halfway mark.
The Bombers won the game in the third quarter.
Blackford said before the game that he was happy with his team's preparation and had confidence in the players in the side to play 100 minutes of football. Sorrento played one game of football for the month and the lack of preparation began to show at the 15-minute mark of the third quarter.
Sorrento players started to give up the chase defensively, allowing the likes of Ryan and Nathan Lonie, Shane Vandervalk, O'Carroll and Grant Masterson to start taking control.
Haydn Moore plonked himself into the Sorrento hole and he too made a significant difference.
Danny Marshall and Chris Longley started to win their share of the taps in the middle of the ground against a gallant Scott Cameron, while the defensive unit of Matt Bell, Shaun Brand, Haydn Bodycomb, Jeremy Waixel and James Hassell was making life extremely difficult for the Sorrento forwards.
Taggers Mark Harrison and Shawn Wilkey dominated their opponents in the middle of the ground and despite copping some behind the play treatment, Ben Drake continued to lead up the field, present and bring the ball to ground.
A snap for goal from Luke Lewis with 30 seconds left on the clock in the third reduced the margin to two goals and one could begin to sense a victory for the first time.
At three-quarter time, with the Bombers kicking with the wind in the last and Sorrento beginning to look weary, the 12-point buffer just didn't look like enough for the reigning premiers.
It wasn't. Matt Longley kicked a couple of goals in the last quarter, Geoff Hibbert snagged a major and the Frankston Bombers, with enormous crowd support behind them, stormed home with a devastating eight-goal final term.
Seventeen-year-old Jake Batchelor was sensational throughout the game and especially in the final term, and Nick Graf provided plenty of bullocking work and was instrumental in getting the pill to his outside players when it mattered most.
The Sorras again went with Stringer as the loose man in defence in the last quarter, but Blackford made him accountable by putting Waixel in unfamiliar territory. The move proved a master stroke with the full-back kicking a goal, sending the Bombers' fan into a frenzy.
The Bombers were far better prepared and a lot more determined to win the hard ball and help a teammate.
With a premiership always comes disappointment. The Bombers lost Travis Reints in the lead-up to the game with a hamstring, and James Degenhardt came off in the first quarter and didn't reappear. Degenhardt's performance in the finals, however, was one of the keys to the Bombers getting where they were.
Blackford said every player had a role to play within the team. He would be proud as punch to say every single one of his men did exactly that.
Blackford has coached a premiership now at every club where he has been at the helm - Berwick, Sorrento and now the Bombers.
Up until Saturday, the last Frankston Bombers premiership came with Tony Blackford playing in a league medal-winning year. The man is the master.
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