It’s back!!
Gridiron is back once again in this great State of ours. It’s been a busy and confusing Off-Season for the League. You can almost liken it to an exciting season of Days of Our Lives…..or perhaps not. Division 2 will be the only Division starting in June as Division 1 can only sit back and watch until July.
The Silverbacks were promoted to Div 1 after dominating everyone (except Bendigo) and winning the Championship game over the Northern Raiders. Berwick were supposed to come down to Div 2 so they could start to rebuild this once strong club. The Silverbacks merged or amalgamated with the Miners over the summer which I think was a good move on their behalf, some of you may disagree, they created Casey Cardinia United. Now here’s where the Days Of Our Lives reference comes into play.
We lost an original favourite character when the Gippsland Gladiators regrettably had to remove themselves from Gridiron Victoria. Some of us cried but some may have seen it coming. The Crusaders cloned themselves creating Cru II, we are unsure if we like them or not as we don’t know much about them. They have the looks but is their acting flawed? The Silverbacks left the show. They were the villain and bully last season, easily having the talent and numbers to compete in DIV 1 but they were not allowed, or didn’t want to, depends on who you ask. They return to DIV 2 at short notice, throwing the fixturing into disarray and Facebook into melt down. They are the same character that left the DIV 2 show but they look nothing like the previous actor that played them. We are all now unsure about this new actor. Will he be just as cunning and villainous or will it be too hard for him to portray? The Melton Wolves are the fresh faced newbie entering their 2nd Season. Will they sit back and play a minor role or will they burst onto our screens in a blaze of glory, taking out the ‘Best New Talent’ award? The Raiders, Dragons, Barbarians and Falcons all return to play the role they have been playing for a few seasons now. Nothing much has changed but Bendigo are wearing designer clothing coming into 2017 and in my opinion will be the character to plot vengeance against.
“Like mud through a face mask…..these are the days of DIV 2”
So, this leaves us with a 7 team Division 2 competition. With improvements in the off-season and some hard work on the training track I can see this being the most even competition since, well, ever.
2017 FINAL STANDINGS (Prediction)
Championship Winner – Bendigo Dragons
Runner Up – Western Crusaders II
3rd – Northern Raiders
4th – Monash Barbarians
5th – Melton Wolves
6th – CCU (The U)
7th – Ballarat Falcons
See you on the sidelines.
