The South Bunbury Tigers are the 2016 South West Football League premiers after they held the Collie Eagles to a record low grand final score on Sunday.
Collie won the toss and elected to kick with the breeze in the first term, a strategy that worked well in both the colts and reserves deciders.
It took 17 minutes of arm wrestling between the two sides to bring about the first goal of the game, courtesy of South Bunbury’s Ryan Bennell. It remained as the only goal of the term with the scoreboard reading 1.2.8 – 0.1.1 in favour of South Bunbury at quarter time.
With the breeze, Anthony Tsalikis nailed the Tiger’s first goal of the second term inside 30 seconds.
Leigh Kohlmann snapped two in a row before Tsalikis’ second got the crowd on their feet.
Kyle Hams got into the action to give South Bunbury their sixth goal before Guy Piggott nailed the seventh mere seconds before the half time siren.
The start of the third term saw Collie score their first major with Mat Michael scooping up a loose ball in the forward pocket. But the Tigers responded immediately with Kohlmann kicking his third.
To pile on the pain, Collie’s Jarrad Miller hit the post running towards an open goal. A few minutes later Jayce Fontana took a better shot to add Collie’s second.
Shaun Crane spun out of trouble to scramble South Bunbury’s ninth goal before Collie’s Jebb Swallow kicked the last major of the term to see the Tigers in front 9.12.66 – 3.3.21 at three quarter time.
Tiger Tom Harper kicked his first of the game to start the final term before Tsalikis kicked his third.
A fight broke out at the southern end of the ground which fast escalated to include all 44 players. Extra umpires ran onto the ground to sort out the brawl with a number of players on both sides given yellow cards.
Travis Cleggett pinched a goal back for the Eagles before a 50 metre penalty brought South Bunbury captain Matt Giacci to the top of the goal square where he completed a memorable victory for the Tigers 12.14.86 – 4.7.31.
The win ended a streak of six consecutive grand final losses for South Bunbury and secured their first league flag since 2002.
Tiger Dylan Harper was presented the Pike Medal as best-on-ground while Jon Meadmore joined a select group of players to win back-to-back flag for different clubs.