Country Footy: Talking points from footy on June 14.
Some struggled returning while other players and teams shined.
Here are the talking points from last weekend.
Prime Train impresses for Seagulls
Prime Train kicked two goals and starred as Warragul smashed Drouin by 115 points in the Gippsland league.
Warragul was the next stop for Prime Train on his tour of playing for clubs in the first part of the season.
He's expected to play for Phillip Island after June 30 for the rest of the season.
The Seagulls were the fifth club Prime Train has played for and he played a part in a pivotal win.
Warragul moved to 6th and 4-5 with the win but importantly got a percentage boost got them past 100 per cent.
The team is now percentage behind 5th.
Bad weekend for unbeaten teams
For Dunnstown and Cavendish, in the Central Highlands and South West District league respectively, their unbeaten runs came to an end in the worse way on Saturday.
Dunnstown lost its first match of the season by 64 points to Skipton, with woeful goalkicking costing them dearly.
The Towners kicked 4.17 for the afternoon.
For Skipton it was a great debut from former AFL player Jesse Palmer who kicked two goals for the Emus.
Palmer, who played three games for Port Adelaide, joined the club during the week before the June 30 deadline for club movements.
Meanwhile, Cavendish lost by 88 points to fellow premiership contender Dartmoor.
The contest was over by half time as the junior club of AFL star Jeremy Cameron kicked nine goals to one to open up a 50-point lead.
The carnage didn't stop as Dartmoor added eight more goals to send a premiership statement to the rest of the league.
Christian Howlett kicked five goals for the Giants.
Is the top-five sealed?
The Bendigo league finals picture could be sorted in the next few weeks after Strathfieldsaye's mid-season resurgence.
The Storm defeated South Bendigo by six points for its third win in four games.
Strathfieldsaye has gone from being outside of the top-five to holding fifth by two games over the chasing pack in the past month.
It also became the first team from the bottom-four to beat a top-four team this season.
While the top-four, including Sandhurst, Gisborne, Eaglehawk and South Bendigo, looks set, the battle for fifth is on between three teams.
Castlemaine, in sixth, has the chance to close the gap with three winnable matches coming up.
The two teams, Castlemaine and Strathfieldsaye, then face each other in round 14, which could shape as the match which decides the final spot.
Golden Square, in seventh, face Strathfieldsaye twice before the end of the year putting themselves in position to make it if the Bulldogs can go on a run.
If Castlemaine and Golden Square fail to bounce back, the Storm could wrap up fifth in a couple of weeks.
Special moment for ex-AFL player
Andrew Hooper will remember Saturday for a while after playing in the same team as his nephew for the Ballarat Swans on Saturday.
The former Western Bulldogs small forward played with Emerton Hooper who made his debut for Ballarat against Melton.
Hooper, 16, is part of the Greater Western Victoria Rebels and played in the V-Line Cup last year.
Despite the 20-point loss to Melton, Andrew impressed, kicking three goals on a special day for the family.
Bombers still the team to beat
Kyabram continues to set the benchmark in the Goulburn Valley league and survived another test on Saturday.
The Bombers moved to 10-0 for the season with a 13-point win over the Shepparton Swans.
Kyabram won the contest with a decisive third term, kicking six goals to two to set up the win.
Aidan Robinson kicking seven goals was also a highlight for the Bombers.
The Swans will rue poor accuracy, kicking 10.18 for the day, to let the game slip away.
Kyabram now faces Rochester in another test to its premiership credentials.
In a league of its own
Only one league in country Victoria has two teams with unbeaten starts to the year.
Waaia and Katandra in the Picola league are both 9-0 and could continue the run until the later stages, if both remain unbeaten.
The Bombers, who have won the past three premierships, had a bye last weekend with Katandra smashing Blighty by 136 points.
The two sides are due to face each other in round 16, which means both sides could be 13-0 when they face each other.
What a contest it could be if both teams make it.
Ex-Cat helps to stun defending champions
Port Fairy and AFL premiership player Gary Rohan has helped the Seagulls to stun last year's premiers South Warrnambool in the Hampden league.
The forward kicked a goal as Port Fairy won by 38 points in one of the club's best wins in years.
Hampden league legend Jason Rowan kicked two goals for Port Fairy as they came back from a first quarter deficit to stun the Roosters.
Port Fairy is seventh on the ladder, one game away from the finals.
The next four weeks will test whether the Seagulls can make it with top-five teams North Warrnambool, Warrnambool and Portland to come.
Bunyip's historic win
Bunyip secured its first win since rejoining the Ellinbank District league, beating Poowong by 21 points.
The Bulldogs led from start to finish and kicked away in the third term, kicking five goals to one, to open up a 28-point lead at the final change.
Bunyip held on in the final term to prevail for the first time since moving from the West Gippsland league last year.
Lachlan Petch, Tahj Murphy and William Grummisch each kicked two goals in the win.
The victory ended the second longest losing streak in local footy.
Bunyip had not won a match in its past 45 with the last win coming at the end of the 2022 season.
Is Bambill's era over?
It's going to take a massive second-half of the season for Bambill to remain the best team in the Millewa league.
The Saints, who have won the past four premierships, lost to Werrimull on the weekend to languish at 3-5 and remain in fourth, the last finals spot.
But it's only on percentage ahead of Gol Gol.
This season has not been like the past.
An opening day loss to Cardross was followed by three in a row and the Saints looked to be back.
But Bambill has now lost the past four to put its premiership hopes under threat.
It had no answers for the Magpies on the weekend as Werrimull led from start to finish.
After a turbulent week off the field for Werrimull the team is now on track to make finals, which could come at the expense of Bambill.
For Bambill the form needs to get better otherwise there will be change at the top this year.
Demons the team to beat
It's been a lean time as a Mildura Demons supporter with only three premierships in the past 65 years.
This year could be the year it changes after the Demons smashed last year's premiers, Imperials.
11 goals after half time blew the game open as Mildura flexed its premiership credentials.
The Demons won 16.12. (108) to 8.8. (56)
Led by ex-AFL player and coach Sam Kerridge, who kicked three goals, the Demons moved to 8-1 and on track for a first premiership since 2007.
Noah Pegoraro, who is leading the goalkicking in the competition, kicked five goals in the win.
Ex-AFL livewire forward Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti kicked three goals for last year's premiers.
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And the past two seasons have been a lot more dire, just 11 wins last year and a finish of 14th, then this season only seven wins, and the defeats including beltings at the hands of lowly North Melbourne (by 59 points) and Essendon (by 39 points). The demographics on the Melbourne list might be a little askew, also. The Dees have the fourth-oldest playing group in the AFL, with nine players on the cusp of 30 or older, a mid-tier group of which several have stagnated, and some promising but still largely unproven younger hands. There's still clear uncertainty, also, about the futures of the likes of Petracca and Oliver (both of whom we're continually being told aren't averse to heading elsewhere), along with May and Gawn, both of whom will be 34 when next season begins. MORE AFL NEWS Does that mean Melbourne should embrace a complete rebuild, though? Not necessarily. Is the age thing as relevant these days as it used to be? More broadly speaking when it comes to lists, do deficiencies in key areas mean the whole thing needs to be thrown away? Adelaide this year would seem to be a good example of why not. The Crows have added a handful of experienced midfielders to the mix and suddenly seem to have more options, flexibility and consistent performance right across the ground. So can Goodwin's nine-year coaching tenure with the Demons also be assessed as not as good or bad as it seemed? Absolutely. His coaching record of 203 games at a winning percentage of nearly 55 stacks up pretty well with most of his competitors. He is (for now at least) one of just four Melbourne premiership coaches in history. Then again, was Melbourne's incredibly dominant finals series of 2021 one of the greatest premiership wins ever? Not necessarily. It certainly was a great example of hitting a sweet spot at the perfect time, however. Goodwin should be rightly proud of his heightened status in the coaching pantheon. And you can bet he'll get another chance because of it. Yes, even when you've just been sacked, things actually mightn't be as bad as they seem. "Things are never as good or as bad as they seem" has become a bit of a go-to piece of homespun philosophy in the world of AFL football over recent years. Increasingly, you can understand why. Take Melbourne, for example, which on Tuesday chose to end the tenure of its premiership coach Simon Goodwin with just three games remaining for the season. So last weekend must have been a shocker, right? Well, no, actually, the Demons had just thumped West Coast by a whopping 83 points. Umm ... OK. So it's about strong, decisive leadership from Melbourne's leaders, yes? Umm ... well, to be frank, what leaders? Fact is, incoming Melbourne chief executive Paul Guerra is still to actually sit in the chair, and chairman-in-waiting Stephen Smith has been on a European sojourn. Indeed, I suspect Tuesday's decision (at least its timing) may have had a bit to do with wanting to be seen to be exercising some control just as Melbourne is beginning to finally cop some public heat for the way even off the field it appears to have coasted through this season. Sure, the optics haven't been great given a still-talented list is about to miss out on finals for a second year in a row. But nor is Melbourne falling apart at the seams. Indeed, ironically, there was much more disquiet going on at board level in 2021 just as the club was winning its first premiership for 57 years than there is now. Football doesn't do nuance particularly well. Which will be a challenge for Melbourne now, also. Because there are alternate ways of looking at just where the Demons are placed in terms of their on-field future. And how Melbourne does peer through the looking glass will have a big say in who ends up being Goodwin's coaching replacement, whether it's an established premiership/grand final coach like any of John Longmire, Adam Simpson or Nathan Buckley, or one of the long catalogue of experienced and well-qualified assistant coaches who'd no doubt love a call-up. The "things are OK" argument is that the Demons still have plenty of star quality via the likes of Christian Petracca, Max Gawn, Kysaiah Pickett, Steven May and Clayton Oliver, some promising younger types with heaps of room for improvement coming through. Their best can still stack up, too, the Dees this season having beaten reigning premier Brisbane on the Gabba no less, likely finalist Fremantle in Perth, and almost upsetting Collingwood in the King's Birthday clash. And the "things are crook" theory? Well, the performance graph has been fairly consistently downward for a while since that famous 2021 flag. There were two subsequent top four finishes which both ended with Melbourne going out in straight sets both times, albeit extremely narrowly in 2023, after having lost to Collingwood by just seven points despite having 32 more inside 50 entries. They'd then lost to Carlton the following week by just two points after kicking 9.17. And the past two seasons have been a lot more dire, just 11 wins last year and a finish of 14th, then this season only seven wins, and the defeats including beltings at the hands of lowly North Melbourne (by 59 points) and Essendon (by 39 points). The demographics on the Melbourne list might be a little askew, also. The Dees have the fourth-oldest playing group in the AFL, with nine players on the cusp of 30 or older, a mid-tier group of which several have stagnated, and some promising but still largely unproven younger hands. There's still clear uncertainty, also, about the futures of the likes of Petracca and Oliver (both of whom we're continually being told aren't averse to heading elsewhere), along with May and Gawn, both of whom will be 34 when next season begins. MORE AFL NEWS Does that mean Melbourne should embrace a complete rebuild, though? Not necessarily. Is the age thing as relevant these days as it used to be? More broadly speaking when it comes to lists, do deficiencies in key areas mean the whole thing needs to be thrown away? Adelaide this year would seem to be a good example of why not. The Crows have added a handful of experienced midfielders to the mix and suddenly seem to have more options, flexibility and consistent performance right across the ground. So can Goodwin's nine-year coaching tenure with the Demons also be assessed as not as good or bad as it seemed? Absolutely. His coaching record of 203 games at a winning percentage of nearly 55 stacks up pretty well with most of his competitors. He is (for now at least) one of just four Melbourne premiership coaches in history. Then again, was Melbourne's incredibly dominant finals series of 2021 one of the greatest premiership wins ever? Not necessarily. It certainly was a great example of hitting a sweet spot at the perfect time, however. Goodwin should be rightly proud of his heightened status in the coaching pantheon. And you can bet he'll get another chance because of it. Yes, even when you've just been sacked, things actually mightn't be as bad as they seem.
