At the start of the 2025 pre-season, the Avenel Swans’ under-15s side had six players.

Avenel had never fielded an under-15s side beforehand either, but history is always there to be made.

By season’s end the Swans, who finished second on the table of the Kyabram District Football League fourths, had done more than establish a fresh side on the park.

It claimed maiden silverware in its maiden season too.

As key forwards Blake Jones and Jackson Fraser kicked the opening goals of the game, Avenel never looked like relinquishing its lead to Nagambie.

Nagambie staged good moments late in the first term but were unable to capitalise, with a couple of behinds from set shots inside the arc delivering the Lakers’ opening scores.

At quarter-time, the Swans led by only two goals, but there was a feel that the game was already being ripped from the Lakers’ grasp.

Jones claimed a strong contested mark at top of the goal square to kick a second, as Avenel controlled the tempo and territory in the second quarter.

Young gun Xavier Bush, who played for both Nagambie’s fourths and thirds sides on Saturday at Mooroopna Recreation Reserve, clunked a pack mark and kicked the first goal for the Lakers, but an end to end overlapping chain saw Sonny Taylor nail a dribbler from the top of the goal square.

The back six of the Swans were unwavering as Nagambie tried to respond, as Ethan Calleja dominated off half back with repeat rebound 50s.

In the second half, the Swans produced an untouched three-disposal chain for Conrad Brown to goal from after the opening clearance in a telling sign of Avenel’s strength over its arch rival.

The third term is often stated to be the premiership quarter and the Swans proved that to be the case, as Cooper Atlas and Blake Benham sailed through majors to pull away from the Lakers.

Attacking and defensive structures were flowing in sync as well as they had all season it appeared, with Nagambie held scoreless as the Swans piled on four third quarter goals to lead 8.7 (55) to 1.3 (9) at the final change of ends.

It was party time in the last term as Avenel fired another four to the scoreboard to comprehensively dispatch Nagambie by 63, 12.7 (79) to 2.4 (16).

Best-on-ground was awarded to one of the Swans’ inaugural six, Lachlan O’Brien, the prolific skipper in the midfield.

“We’ve got a great side here, it started small but everyone worked together in the community and brought it together, and it’s ended well,” O’Brien said.

“We did a lot of recruiting early on, we thought we weren’t going to get there but we kept persisting, persisting and just scraped the team together for round one.

“It’s just evolved from there and it was great.”

Swans coach Dan Boote was rapt with his young side, overjoyed by the claim to silverware in the team’s maiden season.

“I know it’s a cliche but we’ve approached each game one quarter at a time, and we’ve been trying to be level headed all season,” the premiership coach said.

“We started with six, but winning breeds success and we won a few games early and were able to build from there.

“It’s been great.”

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Sunday, 11th December 2022

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