BEYOND THE BOUNDARY – SEPTEMBER 21
St Mary’s will make at least two changes for Friday’s GFNL Grand Final, with veteran defender Ryan Pendlebury and talented young ruck Fletcher Hughes returning to take on South Barwon at GMHBA Stadium.
Pendlebury, who will become co-coach of the club following the decider, was unavailable for the Saints’ second semi-final win over South due to coaching commitments with Geelong’s AFLW team.
Hughes was a late-season signing for Port Melbourne, featuring in the Borough’s elimination final win over Sydney and preliminary final loss to Geelong.
“They’ll both play,” outgoing co-coach Ben Boseley confirmed on K rock Football’s Beyond the Boundary podcast.
“Fletch is quite amazing how that’s evolved from getting a contract late in the year with Port Melbourne, playing the last round, playing the semi, playing in the prelim,” Boseley said. “An amazing story of growth for that guy.
“But we’ve certainly missed him while he had gone. But him and ‘Pendles’ will come straight back in.”
Boseley also hasn’t ruled out tough-as-nails midfielder Elliott MacDonald making a shock return from a fractured scaphoid that has sidelined him since the Round 16 win over St Albans.
“Yeah, he’s a chance; we’ll consider that,” Boseley said.
When you look at him from Round 12 to Round 17, playing senior footy, he was our most important player and probably the competition’s most elite player statistically in those five or six games.”
As of this (Monday) afternoon, South Barwon coach Mark Neeld was still unsure whether he would have access to talented youngster Zach Stevens and midfielder Paddy Kelly.
Both featured in Geelong’s VFL grand final loss to Box Hill but are eligible to play on Friday.
“I’ll speak with (Cats manager) Aaron Black and (coach Mark) ‘Harry’ Corrigan tonight after we train… and then we’ll see where that lands.”
Neeld says South Barwon hasn’t ruled out challenging Lachie Weidemann’s eligibility, who made his 13th appearance of the season at VFL level for the Cats yesterday, which, under AFL Barwon’s rules, takes him past the 12-match threshold and makes him ineligible to play.
“We don’t think the rule’s written clearly enough to say that the finals count,” Neeld said.
“We’ve had some legal advice this morning to say that that looks like it (the ruling) says in the home and away season.
“So we’re going to have a go at that because Lachie’s a big part of our club.”
Neeld also hasn’t ruled out including defender Tom Bartlett, who hasn’t played since the Round 16 win over Colac due to an ankle injury.
“He trained on Thursday, so that will test us,” Neeld said.
“One of the things that will be at the forefront of our mind is 2023, (when) we brought three players back into the team that were injured because they were a core part of what we’d done for the majority of the season, and it didn’t go well for us.
“They weren’t the reason we lost – we ran into a hot team.
“‘Barto’ will test us as to where we sit with that, so I’m not 100% sure what we’ll do with that one.”
X: @krockfootball
