Seagulls, Grubbers split honours in annual Battle of the Bridge

CROSS-TOWN rivals Barwon Heads and Ocean Grove shared the spoils in this year’s Battle of the Bridge, with the Seagulls claiming the senior football bragging rights and the Grubbers prevailing in A-grade netball.

Barwon Heads defeated Ocean Grove by 47 points in football, while Ocean Grove’s netballers recorded a 24-goal victory.

Seagulls senior football co-coach Sam Schaller said the win carried extra significance as the club’s final home game before redevelopment works begin at Howard Harmer Reserve.

“We made it a big focus to take out this game,” he said.

“We wanted to make sure we started well. They’ve got a young side so we wanted to take that away as early as we could.

“We are under no illusions that we’ve had a home schedule to start the year, but to be challenging for the top three at this point is very pleasing.”

He said this week’s matchup with Portarlington would be a challenge and the team would need to “come out full guns blazing”.

While Barwon Heads celebrated on the football field, Ocean Grove secured the major netball honours.

Head coach Mel Holmes said the victory was an important one after the Grubbers fielded their full squad for the first time this season.

“It was awful weather, but the ladies really went to work and saluted in style,” she said.

“This past weekend was the first time all season we’ve had our full team. Through injuries and availability, it hasn’t clicked for us yet this year.

“Everyone got through unscathed and to get a win was a fantastic result.”

Holmes said the reigning premiers were well placed to attack the second half of the season.

“We’ve talked about this being the start of our season again,” she said.

“It hasn’t gone our way with availability thus far, and now we’ve got that opportunity to reset after playing all the teams in the competition.

“It’s exciting to know we haven’t played our best netball yet and we are committed to working really hard.”

Elsewhere, Ocean Grove held on for a six-point reserves football win after Barwon Heads kicked the final four goals of the game.

Across the remaining senior netball grades, Ocean Grove won B-grade by 22 goals, while Barwon Heads claimed C-grade by 13, D-grade by five and E-grade by eight.