LSWFL: Southerners apply finishing touch to dominant colts season with 20-point grand final win over Deanmill

Southerners’ colts side applied the final touch to a dominant Lower South West Football League season with a 20-point grand final victory over Deanmill. In a contest which bore the brunt of Saturday’s wet weather, the minor premiers — who came into the season decider having tasted defeat only once during their 2025 campaign — overcame an early challenge from the Hawks to kick the game’s final five goals and run out 9.3 (57) to 4.13 (37) winners. Southerners’ Harry Cybula, who relished the rain to lead his side’s brilliant defensive display, was recognised as the best player afield. Further forward, livewire Lachlan Hughes and spearhead Isaac Lewkowski (both two goals) led an even showing in attack from the winners, which saw seven players find the major opening. The Hawks, who were best served by Oscar Murphy (two goals), Riley Hetherington and Cejay Brown, would not have lost any admirers for their efforts on the day. But they were left to rue their failure to capitalise on their opportunities in front of goal when they were in the ascendancy across the first and second terms and a slow second-half showing where they mustered only three behinds. Deanmill’s inefficiency in attack and their opponents making the most of their limited chances meant only two points separated the teams at half-time, despite Southerners having seven fewer scoring shots in the first half. And with the contest in the balance, Southerners were able to get it squarely on their terms in a third quarter where they added three majors and limited the Hawks to only a solitary behind. As the day’s heaviest shower slowly began to dissipate after the main break, Hughes showed his class, twice seizing on his teammates winning the ball at inside-50 stoppages to produce a pair of brilliant goals. A downfield free kick on the stroke of the three-quarter-time siren gave Southerners’ Ethan Virgo the chance to further extend the margin to 15 points from the goal square before Jayden Sawyer added another from a similar spot in the opening exchanges of the last quarter to all but make a certainty of the result. The intensity of the contest slowly faded as it drew towards a conclusion before the final siren sounded to spark Southerners’ celebrations of their first colts premiership in seven seasons. Southerners won each of the three clashes between the sides during the home-and-away season by margins greater than five goals, but it was clear early on that the year’s biggest game would not follow the same script. The minor premiers landed the first blow inside the first two minutes through Killian Belton finding space to finish on the run but Hetherington, the winner of the competition’s best and fairest and player of the season awards, showed his class by claiming an inside-50 contested mark and making no mistake with his finish to give the Hawks an instant reply. Much of the first term was owned by the Hawks but Southerners were able to find goals in what were virtually their only two attacking forays. Deanmill were at least able to come up with a pair of goals in the opening quarter through errant defensive kicks from the Southerners, but the minor premiers were able to steady in the second term as the rain began to tumble down.