Dusties dominate in premier
Let the games begin.
Saturday saw the Warragul Industrials senior women's premier division football team take the field against Tyabb in the first round of the South Eastern Women's Football competition for 2023, winning 123-0.
After five months of pre-season preparations, the Dusties were ready to back up from last year's premiership and tackle the challenge of promotion to the premier division.
In addition to a core group of players from the 2022 season, Saturday saw the debut of seven new Dusties, each eager to earn their stripes.
The team was led out by premiership captains Carlee Maher and Michaela Williams.
They came out of the blocks fast, with quick hands and accurate kicking leading to backto-back goals in the opening minutes.
This momentum held, and they found themselves five goals up at quarter time, with Tyabb not yet having broken into their forward 50.
As the wind picked up, the Dusties knew they couldn't let their guard down, and again kept the ball almost exclusively in their forward half for the full second quarter.
The midfield threw themselves hard into every contest, both on the ground and in the air. In addition, the forward pressure was phenomenal.
However, given the crosswind, more points than goals were added to the Dusties' score. This left them 60 points up at the main break.
The team knew this round would be an opportunity to send a message as the newcomers to the premier division, and so the dominance didn't end there.
Using this opportunity to practice some of the strategies they had worked on in the pre-season, Warragul found themselves playing smart footy in the second half.
They not only competed hard at the contest, but fine tuned their ball movement and made sure they were dictating the style and pace of play.
The few times the ball did break the Warragul midfield wall, their backline were perfectly poised to intercept and rebound, showing great decision and speed off the half-back flank.
By the final siren, the Dusties had 12 goal scorers, with Macie Gilmour (three), Nikia Webber (three), Samara Beaton (three) and Sarah Burns (two) all kicking multiple majors. The Dusties song was sung loudly and proudly in the rooms after an ideal start to the season, but the team now have their eyes on the next challenge, knowing what they can bring to even the best teams in the league.
The Dusties development team in division three played a hard fought game against Hastings at Hastings.
The team began with 17 due to illness and throughout the game lost two players to injury. As a result, they finished the game with only 15 players on the field.
Despite the low numbers, the Dusties only lost by three goals which was a fantastic effort.
Next week division one play Frankston at Frankston and division three play Pines at Pines.