St Ignatius chasing Shield Division 1 comp after GISSA success

ST IGNATIUS College is celebrating winning two Geelong Independent Schools Sports Association (GISSA) grand finals.

The Wolves’ 9/10 boys’ team defeated Iona College by 24 points in Division 1 earlier this month to progress to AFL Victoria’s Herald Sun Shield Competition.

Then the Senior boys’ 11/12 team beat Iona College 6.7 (43) to 4.7 (31) last week to win the grand final for the second-straight year.

They will now play in a qualifying game against Ballarat Grammar at Mars Stadium in week 2 of term 3 to qualify for the final spot in the Herald Sun Division 1 Shield.

Matt Waters, the 9/10 boys’ coach, who is also an assistant coach to Joe McLean for the seniors, said playing against Ballarat was a big opportunity.

“Because we won (Herald Sun Shield) Division 2 last year and playing against some pretty good schools, that’s then moved us into this playoff game to try and get into the Div 1 shield.

“So you’d be playing against schools, that would be the champions of APS [Associated Public Schools] and ACC [Associated Catholic Colleges]. So there are some really big-name schools.”

Among the Wolves players is Geelong Falcons’ Angus Ford and Rilley Aquilina, who is playing with Vic Country in the under-18 national championships.

Meanwhile, the 9/10 boys are aiming to turn around their fortunes in the Shield Division 2 competition this year.

They have made the grand final the past two years.

“Both years in a row, we’ve won all of our grading games and then we play a team that we’ve played earlier in the day and they’ve gotten over the top of us,” Waters said.

“So hopefully this year we can make a means to address that and then push to try and get a win in that space.”