Night Time Champions

Congratulations to our champion Men’s B Grade 4 and the Junior A Grade 3 teams on their premiership wins in the last two weeks.

The Men’s site had a dramatic and thrilling victory over Keilor East T.C. on November 30th. The team, consisting of Russell Bedggood, Terry Benton, Michael Benton, Tim Benton, Liam Benton, Anthony Lieu & Kieran Benton, scraped into fourth position and knocked off first in the semi final. The match started off at West Brunswick, but after the first two sets, the match was moved down the road to Royal Park due to faulty court lights. After a few hard fought sets, Doutta Galla prevailed and won the final by about 12 games. Celebrations are still continuing……..

The Junior side, consisting of Kavindu Gamage, James Reid, Drew Gilpin and Kieran Benton defeated St John Bosco’s by 9 games at Moomba Park T.C. on the 7th of December. After demoralising every team throughout the year, St John Bosco’s gave the boys a scare with some very close matches, however Doutta Galla prevailed and the game was won in the end. It is unfortunate that the team will no longer be together next season for various reasons, as they cannot complete the “premiership hat-trick” of 3 grand final wins in a row, having won the past two flags after two massive seasons.

Doutta Galla had 3 teams out of our 5 playing in grand finals on recently and 2 out of 3 won on the night.

Congratulations to the A Reserve 1 Boys and A Reserve 3 Boys for fantastic wins. Unfortunately our combined A Special DGTC / Hadfield team were defeated narrowly.

Unfortunately the B Grade 1 and D Grade 1 Boys did not make the finals, but there is always next season.

A Res 1 PremiersThe A Reserve 1 Boys (Kavindu, James, Drew & Kieran, shown opposite [Click on the image for a larger version]) played a very close match and won by 1 game! Kav fought bravely against probably the only player that had given Kav any trouble all season but then played a fantastic doubles with Kieran to clinch victory (with a final shot to win the game that would have beaten Pat Rafter himself, but that’s another story). Also great effort by James in a narrow singles loss but to steal back a few extra games in his singles was pivotal in making the difference on the scoreboard, Kieran and Drew both had outstanding wins in their singles to put the team in a good position and in the end 1 game was enough….well done boys.

The A Reserve 3 Boys led by Derek at number one, Taylor, Steven and Joel made strong going of the singles and in the end the results gave the team a four game lead heading into the two doubles, two outstanding doubles results 6-2, 6-2 saw the team pile on 8 extra games and the result was never in doubt! Derek has been outstanding all year, with Taylor at number 2 with great support, Steven has gone from strength to strength and Joel showed some uncanny flair in the final with some right and left handed (that’s right) volleys which were amazing to watch! Great win.

Unfortunately the A Special team suffered some late injuries with their number 1 girl forced to withdraw on the night and Doutta’s very own Michael Mann unavailable (school function) made the task heavy going…… Doutta’s Emma Brennan however stepped into the mix and turned it on with a great singles win at number 3, the team however was overpowered in the doubles. Special mention to our very own Jim Brennan for all the hard work he has put into the team this year and getting them to the final was outstanding in itself. Congratulations to all our teams, it was an excellent season from everyone.