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Sports’ fixtures create finals fiasco Brodie Cowburn team@mpnews.com.au A DECISION by the Mornington Peninsula Junior Football League to play its finals on Saturdays is forcing some players to choose between playing basketball or football. Clubs in the MPJFL usually play on Sundays, allowing many team members to play other sports on a Saturday without fear of a scheduling conflict. “Many children play basketball on a Saturday, so now we're in a position where the finals fixtures clash with us
because they're played on a Saturday too," Mornington District Basketball Association general manager Samantha Browne said. "When the children signed up to play football they were of the understanding they would be playing on a Sunday.” Ms Browne said the basketball association was unable to change its fixture this late in the season, leaving children “in a position where they'll have to either forfeit their football matches or their basketball matches”. "We should be able to work together to avoid these situations, because we know that having children play multi-
ple sports is really healthy. All this is doing is making children choose and putting kids in really difficult positions," she said. The full junior football finals fixture for 2018 was released on 22 July. All finals last year outside of the junior, intermediate and youth girls' games were played on a Sunday. MPJFL senior vice-president Paul Lonsdale said the league tried its best to find a ground for all finals on a Sunday, but the lack of availability made Saturday finals a "last resort". “Junior football is growing so much it's just so hard to hold finals all on the
same day,” he said. “We don't have the grounds and the time, it's very difficult. We would have loved to have a three or four ground facility, we approached Mt Eliza but with their seniors teams playing finals they shot us down. “There are 28 finals to be played and we can only realistically fit 13 in one day on a two-oval set up. We know it was late timing, but we tried finding a three-oval setup and this was our last resort, it wasn't that we were trying upset anybody, we were just trying to find another avenue to stop this from happening.”
Mr Lonsdale said the MPJFL was “working really hard” to avoid a repeat of the problem next year. “There's a decision to be made for players and now we're going to lose players back to netball and basketball too; it's hard to try and please everyone but we were working hard to get everything on a Sunday. "We thought long and hard about it and we had no other options. We want to make sure we get on with all codes, but the size of our league and the ground availability is making it harder and harder."
Mornington Pirates field state teams THE MORNINGTON Pirates Baseball Club was represented by 13 of their baseballers at the State Winter Championships over the past month. The Pirates had a representative in every age group of the competition, from under-12s through to seniors, with a staggering seven of their under-12s players filling almost half of the Dandenong Baseball League’s under-12s side. The championships were held over several weekends and played in Mildura (under-12s), Morwell (under-16s and under-18s) and Geelong (seniors). Mornington Pirates Baseball Club president Matt Hardie said it was an amazing achievement for the juniors and a great feeling for the club to have so many players competing. “At the beginning of the year we
were scratching for numbers of our own in the under-12s so to have eight new players in our own team and for four of them to make the representative side is fantastic,” Hardie said. “It just shows the development that they’ve made in such a short period and I think it speaks volumes of the junior program that we have here.” While none of the sides walked away as state champions, they were all still extremely competitive with the under-16s team outperforming expectations and making it through to an entertaining semi-final. Under-12s baseballer Sam Walsh was also awarded the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award after performing exceptionally well at the state championships. Hardie said that having the club’s
senior players coming to training has been of real benefit to their juniors. “You’re only as strong as your juniors, and having the seniors there at training I think has definitely helped them improve their skills,” he said. “This is probably the biggest representation that our club has had, that I can remember. “They all love baseball to begin with, but they all absolutely loved playing rep and the extra competitiveness that came with it.”
Aiming high: Mornington Pirates have seven of the 15 baseballers playing in the under-12s Dandenong League state team. Picture: Supplied
Speedy Pippie impresses in town PROMISING filly, Pippie, has more than exceeded expectations of trainer Chris Meagher after taking the step up to metropolitan grade on Saturday 4 August. Following Pippie’s dominant five length maiden win at Cranbourne on Thursday 5 July, Meagher decided to test the three-year-old filly against a handy field at Moonee Valley, which included five last start winners. Meagher thought that off her debut victory, she would be able to make the step up in class, with a top three finish being the “pass mark”. “She won exceptionally well at her first start so we wanted to see how she would handle the step up to that grade,” he said. “Going off that first run we thought she’d measure up but to run second it showed that she is well above average. “I thought it was a very good run.” Pippie was slow out of the barriers, as Meagher had expected, and was caught wide for the majority of the race which Meagher believes would have taken away from her finish. “She drew a sticky gate and while she took up a forward position at her first start we thought she’d be a bit tardy out,” he said. “The winner (Multaja) sat behind us and took over down the straight and raced away, and while I don’t think we could have beaten it, we could have finished closer to it. “Noel [Callow] got off her after the race and said that ‘she’s the real deal’, so there looks to be positive signs ahead.” The daughter of Written Tycoon is likely to return to the races this Saturday 18 August in the Group Three Quezette Stakes (1100m) at Caulfield, depending on how she pulls up from her last run. “She’ll gallop on Wednesday with [Ben] Melham aboard and if all is going well then we’ll be back at the races Saturday,” he said. “I’d be surprised if she wasn’t there as she’s pulled up exceptionally well, but the gallop will tell us more.”. Ben Triandafillou
Zippy Pippie: Chris Meagher trained filly, Pippie, wins on debut by five lengths. Picture: Supplied Frankston Times
13 August 2018
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