Longwarry’s 24-point win in the Ellinbank League over reigning premier Buln Buln is arguably the club’s most significant home-and-away result since the pandemic.
It all but locks the Crows into second spot on the table and is their first victory over the Lyrebirds since a one-point triumph in early 2022, losing their most recent seven meetings.
The small community club isn’t a traditional league powerhouse, so felt the sting of the pandemic more than most clubs – particularly given it was coming off a drought-breaking premiership.
After missing finals in both 2022 and 2023, Longwarry rebounded spectacularly last year, reaching the preliminary final as players returned and the multi-year focus of backing young locals started to pay dividends.
“The biggest thing was building a culture where people wanted to play for the club,” vice president Nathan Fry said.
“We wanted to build it to be a place people cared for so people would want to win games for the club.
“We knew how good our players were and a lot of them were good young players who have started to mature.”
It was fitting that the first three players coach Darren Granger reeled off as shining on Saturday, Jason Wells, Gus Adamiak and Bailey Stephens, each represented an important aspect of Longwarry’s growth.
Wells’ return in 2024 was emblematic of the recruiting drive with the club having been relatively inactive in that space in the two years prior.
Seeing the progression of Longwarry throughout last year, the complement of 2025 recruits largely came to the club, rather than the club actively seeking it.
Adamiak is one of the youngsters who has been backed to grow alongside the club and Stephens is part of a group of players entering their prime which Longwarry knew it could “pass the baton” onto.
“We came up with a recipe and said ‘we have all the ingredients, we just needed to put it all together’ and we knew if we did, it would all come together,” Fry recalled.
“It’s been awesome seeing the younger guys grow and even older guys who have been around the club for a long time are starting to put their hand up to do different things.
“It’s been a passing of the baton from guys who were running it to still being there helping out some others.”
Entering the 2025 season, there was an awareness around the league of Longwarry’s improved list and investment off-field which could lead to a spike in results, which has materialised.
It’s been linear growth for the Crows: a winless record against top-five sides in 2023 with an average losing margin of 71 points became a 4-5 record last year, its first finals appearance since 2019.
After losing its first four matches in 2024 against fellow finalists by an average of 28 points, the club won four of its next six against those opponents spearheading it to the preliminary final, the only two losses being to each of the grand finalists.
This year, Longwarry has only two losses – against the undefeated Neerim-Neerim South and when it held a 30-point lead in the second half in their first game against the Lyrebirds, with Sunday’s flipped result exacting revenge for them.
Throughout the process, the club has unwaveringly stuck to a multi-year plan to return the club into premiership contention.
“We’ve got a plan up and coming for the next few years,” coach Darren Granger told this masthead in May last year.
“We want to be competitive with the teams around us and close the gap with the top four or five teams and make those margins a little bit less and after the first 12 months, build even further, and we feel like we’re on the right track,”
It was a telling statement from a club which hadn’t delivered much of note on-field to that point of the season, and competed in a league long dominated by a consistent bloc of clubs, of which they were not part of.
But it was about that time the injured players – and therefore, pendulum – started to turn.
An emphasis is on putting the pieces in place to solidify Longwarry as a perennial contender, rather than looking to spike for a premiership.
The 2019 salute brought the community enormous joy, but there was a sense of completion among many following that year, which led to many departures, rather than a desire to build Longwarry from a champion side to a potential Ellinbank League powerhouse.
The seismic change of leadership – Granger coming in as coach, Annie Van Der Heyden as president and Fry as vice-president – ahead of 2024 was a positive pivot point for the club’s trajectory.
“We are trying to put things in place so it isn’t a few years of good football, we want it to become a longer dynasty,” said Fry, who skippered the 2019 premiership and saw people leave in the immediate aftermath
“We want to be consistently competing at the top of the ladder in football and netball.
“We want to make sure we can retain juniors and give them the best pathway.
“We don’t want to go all out and then letting people lose interest, we need to ride that wave and stay on top.
“Next pre-season we will step up our training and getting more professional.
“We really want to go to the next level and in order to do that, we need to really commit and do the extra things people might not be willing to do.”
First though, there is a premiership to compete for, and with Longwarry’s blend of off-field stability and on-field confidence, the club might be better positioned than any to match it with the undefeated Neerim-Neerim South.
