Moe in premiership form at Wonthaggi

WE MAY have just seen the 2025 Gippsland League Premiers at Wonthaggi on Saturday.

Incredibly, Moe haven’t won a flag since 1967, despite going agonisingly close on a number of occasions, including missing out by one point in consecutive years, under different coaches, in 1972 and 1973.

But this year they have the right blend of height, pace, youth and goal-kicking power to put them clearly at the front of the queue at the halfway stage of the season.

Not to say they can’t be beaten on the odd occasion but if they don’t win this year, they never will.

All of that was on display at Wonthaggi on Saturday, especially in the first quarter, when they opened up with five goals in the first 12 minutes to take a firm grip on the contest.

At the quarter-time break, trailing by seven goals to two, Power coach Jarryd Blair hit the nail on the head.

“Our untidiness let them put on seven before we fired a shot,” said Blair.

“There’s space out there if we can hit our targets. Let’s lift our effort and intensity,” he said.

Moe had killed Wonthaggi on the turnover and punished their mistakes, of which there were many, including kicking the ball out of bounds on the full on three occasions.

With a fleet of fast, skilful players linking up through the middle of the ground; including Alex Dijkstra, Harrison Sim, Scott van Dyk, Myles Poholke, Jacob Balfour, Leigh Poholke, Nathan Scagliarini with nine kicks in the first 15 minutes, Keller Holmes, Ben Daniher, Trent Baldi and Jacob Wood, the former captain, not fast, but tough and talented, they were ‘off to the races’ every time Wonthaggi turned it over and they put it on the scoreboard.

Up forward, Moe has some real star power in the tattooed man, Ben Crocker, who kicked 20 goals in 13 games with Collingwood’s VFL side last year. His contribution of seven goals on the day, plus numerous assists, could have been considerably worse but for the opposing star power of Isaac Chugg working back the other way.

Chugg bravely played Crocker from 10 metres in front of him, much of the time, and took the gamble of letting him drift back towards the goals while helping his fellow defenders clear the ball.

He also used his incredible athleticism to punch the ball clear of Crocker, or out-compete him on the ground, and if ever there was a game where your opponent kicks seven, and you still take the honours, this was it, such was the weight of numbers in Moe’s favour.

They had 18 marks to eight in their forward 50 and while the ‘inside 50’ stats don’t reveal the true disparity, Moe had 49 to Wonthaggi’s 37. But with the likes of Crocker (7) and the coach Leigh Poholke (4), plus a few other contributions, they converted well until the sting went out of the game.

Wonthaggi, by comparison, kicked 4.12 on the day, including seven points, with no goals in the last quarter, mostly from gettable shots.

Of course, Moe also have the necessary height with the intercept king Declan Keilty forcing turnovers at either end of the field and the beanpole brothers, Chris and Nick Prowse, the latter kept quiet on the day by Kyle Reid and co.

They’re the complete package this year.

There was talk out of the Wonthaggi Power camp before the game that “we’ve got 18 injured players on our senior list” so hopefully they didn’t have themselves beaten before they started.

But it’s true with important big man Jakeb Thomas top of the medical file with a broken leg and dislocated ankle from the Traralgon game, and also with Jack Blair, Harry Dawson, Fergus O’Connor and Aiden Lindsay among others missing.

As much as being a loss of talent, there’s also the loss of experience needed when an 
opposing team gets a run on.

But Wonthaggi Power has also had some real success in bringing on a number of young and new players this year, and when they did settle down after quarter time, albeit with shocking kicking for goal, they matched it in most aspects with Moe, led by the likes of Ryan Sparkes, Noah Anderson, Isaac Chugg of course, the Williams brothers, Brodie Mabilia, Kyle Yann, Josh Bates and others.

By all accounts, Wonthaggi will now lose Kyle Reid for a number of weeks, with the key defender unavailable. But despite that, they need to be backing their own talent from the outset each week and looking to win as many of the next six games as they can against Warragul, Maffra, Drouin, Morwell, Sale and Bairnsdale.

They won’t want to be leaving it to the last three weeks to make a late run at the finals with Traralgon, Leongatha and Moe in consecutive rounds to finish the season.

And coach… get Ryan Sparkes to take the squad for some goal-kicking practice during the week after he kicked a couple of clutch goals on the day, one at the end of the first quarter and another, after commendable forward pressure by McInnes, Yann, Jarryd Blair himself, Patterson and others halfway through the third.