BFL frontrunners emerge

THE Bellarine Football League’s (BFL) first seven rounds are in the books with all sides enjoying the first of their two byes in recent weeks.

Torquay has continued to excel each week, despite losing key forward Lucas Anderson to a season-ending knee injury and without four-time Les Ash Medallist James Darke, who is expected to make his return to the competition in the coming weeks.

Dom Gleeson’s Tigers remain unbeaten at 7-0, a game and a half in front of surprise frontrunner Geelong Amateur (5-1-1), who have a draw in hand putting it ahead of Drysdale and Anglesea, each with 5-2 records.

The BFL top five remains largely the same compared to 2024, barring the swap of Ammos for Modewarre, who have struggled to find consistency against the top half of the ladder under new coach Mark Hovey.

Drysdale’s roster has remained largely unchanged from the list that made it all the way to last year’s Grand Final.

While falling to Torquay in Round 1 and then again to Geelong Amateur last weekend, Ben Carmichael’s outfit has proven they are up to the task in 2024, stringing together five straight wins during the early rounds of the year.

Anglesea playing coach Jordan Keras is also seeing the fruits of labours from previous seasons coming into effect, displaying impressive results to date and introducing an abundance of new faces.

Keras said the club’s new recruits including Tom Couch (Koroit), Dylan Featon (Deer Park), Anton Woods (Eltham), Mitch Johnson (Labrador), Jacob Agostino (St Bede’s), Nick Swain (Ballarat) and Courtney Wedderburn (St Bede’s) had slotted into the rotation well.

A Preliminary Finalist last season, Barwon Heads (4-2-1) is finding its feet in 2024 after a slow start to the campaign.

The Seagulls dropped a pair of games against Anglesea and Drysdale to open the season but has remained near perfect since Round 3 to sit in fifth position on the ladder heading into Round 8 under the tutelage of Mitch Herbsion and Sam Schaller.

Six points outside the top five is Modewarre on a 3-4 record, with an important contest before them against Newcomb this weekend before a massive clash against Drysdale to conclude the first half of the season.

Queenscliff (2-5), Portarlington (2-5), Newcomb (1-6) and Ocean Grove (0-7) are all still searching for answers with 11 rounds still to play.

Anglesea host Geelong Amateur this weekend, Queenscliff travel to Barwon Heads, Modewarre play Newcomb, Ocean Grove go up against Drysdale, and Portarlington welcome Torquay to round out Round 8.