Join The Courier's David Brehaut and Greg Gliddon as they preview round 2 of the BFNL and CHFL in 2024.
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00:00 Welcome to our second edition of Friday Footy Frenzy. I'm David Brio and I'm
00:04 joined once again by Greg Glidden. Good evening Greg. Good evening David. Good to
00:10 be back here once again. Round two in both the Central Highlands and Ballarat
00:14 football netball leagues and after round one you get a little bit of a picture of
00:20 what's happening but you know it'll take a few weeks particularly in the Central
00:24 Highlands it will and I believe in the in the Ballarat League as well. Just takes
00:28 a few rounds just to sort things out to get a real feel for it. Saw some good
00:33 signs though from a number of clubs last week and it just happens that this
00:37 weekend looks like an absolute blockbuster in the Ballarat Football League so we'll get into that in a minute.
00:41 We will. First of all we're going to go to the Central Highlands and first of all
00:46 before we go any further this edition of Friday Footy Frenzy is brought
00:52 to you by our major Central Highlands Football League sponsor or coverage
00:57 sponsor Sheds and Shades by Design and of course they're also the sponsor of
01:02 our live broadcasts on a Saturday. And before we start I guess we should just
01:09 mention that we're heading down to Rokewood, Greg or I am anyway, and to
01:14 cover the Rokewood Corandap and Carlam Linton game. So two close rivals and
01:21 they're rivals from the old days in both the Lexton Plains and the
01:28 Western Plains Leagues. And a lot expected of both clubs this season. Yeah there's a bit of
01:32 pressure on both and we'll talk more about that in a moment. So let's quickly
01:36 run through the the fixtures for Saturday and we'll kick off with one of
01:42 the matches of the round. There's a few interesting matchups and we've got
01:45 Dunstown at home to Springbank. I'm going for Dunstown both these sides
01:50 finalists last year and they both dropped their opening rounds. Now
01:54 Dunstown lost to the reigning Premier Gordon so I don't think that really
02:00 meant a lot in the sense it wasn't a setback. I think the margin actually
02:04 flattered Gordon a little bit. Gordon has to buy this week. So I expect Dunstown to
02:11 hit back. There were some good signs there. They've just got to fine-tune a few
02:14 things around some recruits particularly Brad Whittaker up forward. He was a focal
02:19 point and they just need to work out how to get the ball to him. Give him a bit
02:23 more space and eyes down. They were delivering the ball over his head all
02:26 the time and they just set it up for the defenders. Springbank well you'd have to
02:30 say it was a shock loss to Rugwood Corandap last week. The first time the
02:34 grasshoppers have beat the Tigers. Last year's grand finalists down on the
02:38 strength of last year. A few guys out and missing early in the season. A couple of
02:44 departures. Completely different looking side this year. Well not completely but it
02:48 doesn't take much to take the edge off them and I think that's what we've seen
02:51 with the Tigers. Anyway Dunstown to beat Springbank. As I said I'm heading down to
02:55 Rugwood to see the grasshoppers play Carnum Linton. Rugwood Corandap
02:59 up and about after their first ever win over Springbank. Carnum Linton. A bit of a
03:05 wake-up call there I think in their first round loss to Learmonth.
03:08 Particularly the margin. They finished very strongly. They finished closer than
03:12 it looked like they would. They were a finalist last year of course. A big
03:15 improver and I think what that proves and the underlined as I wrote during the
03:20 week. Rival terms going to be much more on notice for the Saints. They won't be
03:25 getting under anyone's guard. I'm going to go for Rugwood to keep momentum going.
03:28 There's only a couple of points between them last year and maybe this is the
03:33 grasshoppers opportunity to get another win over the Saints and get their season
03:37 really rolling. Learmonth at home to Creswick. Yeah Learmonth for me. They were
03:42 a first-round winner as I said against Carnum Linton. I think they can go on
03:45 with the job there. Belan at home to Bungaree and of course the highlight for
03:49 Belan. First home game in more than two seasons. It's been a long time.
03:55 They've been waiting for this. Fantastic new facility as far as change rooms and
03:59 the multi-purpose community centre they've got there and anyone from
04:04 Bungaree that goes along will be delighted with what they see and I think
04:08 just the fact that Belan's at home. They'll be up and about. They're coming
04:12 off a first-round win and they'll certainly be excited but they run into
04:16 the form team of the competition and in Bungaree coming off a huge win over
04:22 Hepburn and I think yeah the Demons should win this comfortably enough but
04:27 anyway great to see football back at Belan. Hepburn up against Dalswood at
04:33 Hepburn. The old rivalry. I think the rivalry heats up again. In the old days
04:39 going back 20 years or so when Dalswood entered the competition. Look it was
04:45 it was on for everyone. It was really hot. Both those teams were highly
04:50 successful. Falling away a little bit as Dalswood's just had some tough years but
04:54 I reckon there's a sign that this rivalry could be back on really up and
04:59 about on Saturday. I've written a piece about it just reflecting on those good
05:05 old days if you like when both teams were at powerhouse. Is this the year that
05:08 Dalswood gets going again? I think they're gonna be a big improver. Do they
05:12 beat Hepburn, a big loser against Bungaree? I think Hepburn bounces back
05:17 and they may be just a little bit too good at this stage of the Bulldogs but
05:20 expect a much closer game than we've seen in recent years. Beaufort's at home to
05:24 Bunningong. Bunningong should win this. Of course Bunningong's match last week
05:29 was called up midway through the game, well midway through the first half so
05:34 really the Bombers are just starting their season. Beaufort I think they're in
05:38 for a long season, they've got a young team, they've just got to be patient. Newell and the
05:42 other team in that called off game there at home to Warburra. Good effort by
05:46 Warburra last week, they really gave it a bit of a shot before falling short.
05:49 The Cats should win and win well there and Clunes, a first-round winner, just got
05:56 home against, they're up against Skipton. Skipton had the bye in the first round.
06:00 I'd expect Skipton to win that as they should be heading for another final
06:05 series. So an interesting round and it'll help us shape up things. But Greg you've
06:10 already intimated there's a blockbuster, that was a terminology you used in the
06:14 Ballarat Football Netball League, straight to it. Technically there's about
06:17 three or four blockbusters this weekend, there's nothing between. I would say
06:20 probably four of the games could go either way. We start off with, I guess we
06:25 could start off with Saturday night, the grand final replay, North Ballarat
06:29 versus Dali. I mean we all know what happened last time these two sides met
06:32 so of course it was Dali getting home by one point on basically the last kick of
06:36 the day. So that'll be a blockbuster at Mars Stadium Saturday
06:41 night. I think they're hoping for quite a big crowd to head on down there as
06:44 well. The other thing that we've got on this weekend is probably two of the
06:48 form sides from last week, from the first round. Sebastopol taking on Melton.
06:52 Melton had a huge win over Melton South. Sebastopol were 80 point winners over
06:58 Lake Wendaree and to be honest with you it never felt like it was going to get 80
07:01 points and then you look at the final score and think gee they're that far
07:04 ahead. So this is an absolute blockbuster on Saturday afternoon.
07:09 It has meant a lot between those teams in recent years because they clashed in a
07:12 grand final and Melton got the chocolates as they say. So yeah that'll
07:18 go a long way to perhaps deciding early in the piece who may have the edge in
07:23 that pursuit of the top two. It's an interesting one, there's not a lot between them but
07:29 Tony Locchio I just got off the phone with about 10 minutes ago and he
07:32 said to me that they actually haven't beaten Melton since 2019.
07:36 So there's a little bit in this for the for the borough and I think at
07:40 home they'd be very keen to get a good result against a top quality opposition.
07:44 The other matches that look terrific, Ballarat
07:48 versus Redan as well. I mean both teams showed plenty last week. We saw
07:52 plenty out of Ballarat getting over the top of Bacchus Marsh and Redan
07:56 were well in the contest apart from probably a 10-minute patch in the third
08:00 quarter against Sunbury. So honestly I think this is going to be a really
08:03 close contest as well. I like to always reflect on each time this game comes up
08:08 of course so before your time, long time before your time in Ballarat Greg, that
08:12 they used to be co-tenants of the City Oval before Ballarat headed off to a new
08:18 home at Elfrid and all those years ago. So there's always a bit of that
08:22 old rivalry as far as the former co-tenants in this game but on this
08:27 occasion of course the game's at Elfrid. And the other the other match of course
08:30 that could go either way is Lakers versus Bacchus Marsh. Both teams went
08:34 down in the opening round. Bacchus Marsh showed plenty of good signs under
08:37 Dennis Armfield and the Lakers for two quarters in the second and third
08:41 quarter against Sevastopol, they were terrific. So yeah there's plenty to like. I think
08:45 there'll probably be a couple of changes with the Lakers side but we'll see where
08:49 it goes. Sunbury should have no trouble beating Melton South in the other game.
08:52 Sunbury were pretty impressive. I watched that game last week and they were pretty
08:55 impressive. They were slick. They probably overdid it a couple of
08:59 times but when they played a tempo strong football they were very hard.
09:03 I think Matthew White was pretty impressive what he saw in the
09:06 opening round. So my tips are I'm gonna tip Sebas at home against Melton.
09:11 It's just the home game. Early in the season nothing between the two
09:17 sides at this stage. Melton did everything they could have done last
09:20 week. No reason Sebas at home. I'll be tipping probably tipping Redan to get
09:27 over the top of Ballarat. I saw enough out of Redan last week even though
09:29 they've got a few injuries. But Lakers, Bacchus Marsh again you're probably just
09:34 heading to the home team on this one. Sunbury should defeat Melton South and
09:39 Northern Dahlia it's a toss-up it really is. If it's like last year if it's a
09:44 one-pointer let's hope it's something similar. So let's go Dahlia.
09:48 We've seen exposed form from Dahlia of course. North having the bye last week so
09:51 we'll tip Dahlia. We've no confidence whatsoever. Excellent. Anyway some good
09:55 matchups there. Okay that ends our second edition of Friday Footy Frenzy. It's been
10:01 brought to you by Sheds and Shades by Design. We'll be back next week as
10:06 things hot up but certainly looking forward to another great round of both
10:11 football and netball on Saturday both the Ballarat and Central Highlands
10:15 Football and Netball League. So from myself David Brio and Greg Glynn it's a
10:20 very good evening.