Yarra Valley Water InFocus 2025

By Christopher Kourtis.

South Croydon’s Premier Division women’s team were crowned premiers in 2024, whilst all other senior teams made finals – a feat they’ll look to repeat in 2025.

South Croydon are looking to build on an already strong foundation to go a couple of steps further in 2025.

Finishing fifth in 2024 and falling to Rowville in the Semi Final, the Bulldogs showed great improvement following an 0-2 start where the side lost by a combined 110 points.

Head coach Brendan Allen was pleased with the progress his side showed throughout the season.

“We were slow starters,” said Allen. “As soon as we got going, we beat everyone”.

South Croydon has retained much of its strong core of players, whilst also managing to add some big names to the list.

Among these is Jett Latchford (son of former club great, Scott) and Sam Wicks, who trades the Outer East League for the EFNL.

“We had a mid-year forward planning strategy meeting,” said Allen. “We had a few holes we needed to fill so it was a targeted off-season of recruiting”.

The biggest new name to call Cheong Park home is three-time AFL premiership player Liam Shiels.

With over 285 appearances at the top level, Coach Allen has already seen the lift that Shiels has given the side.

“He’s just a quality person, first and foremost,” said Allen. “He’s starting to really speak up at training and help a lot of the young kids. Everyone lifts around someone like that on the track… everything seems to go up a notch.”

The Bulldogs will look to start 2025 off on the right foot as they travel to East Ringwood Reserve to take on last season’s minor premiers, East Ringwood.

After finishing second in the home-and-away season, South Croydon Blue were crowned premiers of the Premier Division, preventing an Eastern Devils three-peat in the Grand Final.

Head coach Simon Hammersley remembers the joy of the success.

“We had a great year and Grand Final day… it was an amazing day,” said Hammersley.

Named as the head coach in the 2024 Premier Division Women’s Team of the Year, Hammersley has done well to retain the core talent in his side. Among those committing to another season at Cheong Park is Taylah Black, who reached EFNL Legend status after winning her third league Best and Fairest award.

“[Taylah Black] is 1 of 1 in the legend arena for the women’s game,” Hammersley said, before speaking about his list as a whole. “Obviously there’s always a little bit of turnover… for the most part it’s all pretty stable”.

Despite the previous success, Hammersley is still set on making improvements to his South Croydon Blue side.

“There’s a few tweaks that we want to make with the way that we play the game so that we can keep building and keep doing things different – add some more layers to what we are doing,” Coach Hammersley said.

“Last year was a great chapter for the club… but obviously that chapter is now done”.

The Bulldogs will travel to Vermont Recreation Reserve to take on Vermont in their season opener. South Croydon won both meetings last season by a combined 94 points.

South Croydon’s development squad also put together a strong home-and-away season in 2024 but fell short in September.

Despite finishing third, the Bulldogs boasted the league’s second-best offense and defence. The side would ultimately fall to Heathmont by six points in Semi Final 1.

There is good reason to be excited about what the side will produce in 2025, as they were one of the only teams to defeat eventual premiers Mooroolbark.

South Croydon Red will look to go one step further and extend their post-season push in 2025.