FB: Luke Carroll (Lav, Alb), Travis Hodgson (Nth, Myrt), Andrew Hill (Rovers)

HB: Darryn McKimmie (Lav), Craig Tafft (Cor), Matthew Shir (Wod)

C: Jason Wild (Yar), Jon McCormick (Wang), Jason Lappin (Wang)

HF: Tim Hargreaves (Yar), David Lucas (Cor), Simon McCormick (Nth, Wod)

FF: Paul Nugent (Wod), Jon Henry (Wang), Craig Ednie (Yar)

Ruck: Peter Doherty (Lav), Rob Walker (Rovers), Carl Dickins (Cor)

Inter: Kade Stevens (Lav), Mark Doolan (Raiders), Darren Bradshaw (Wod)

Emerg: Mark Bush (Nth, Alb), Jarrod Twitt (Wod), Tony Pasquali (Rovers)

Coach: Tim Sanson

It has been a fascinating decade for O and M football, writes DAVID JOHNSTON. Nine of the 10 teams in the league made a grand final appearance but if one had to be picked out as the best, it would have to be the Lavington Panthers with their two premierships, an unsuccessful grand final appearance and two defeats in preliminary finals.

IN a decade when nine of the 10 clubs in the Ovens and Murray Football League played off in at least one grand final, Lavington can rightly lay claim to be the best performed team from 2000 to 2009.

The Panthers won two premierships, in 2001 and 2005, played off in another grand final in 2008 and were beaten in a preliminary final twice in 2004 and 2006.

In total they played finals six times in the 2000s with the one constant being the man at the helm, Tim Sanson, who was first appointed in 1998 and remains in charge.

The Panthers won 114 games and lost 83 in the decade and were one of three teams to win two premierships with Corowa-Rutherglen a force at the start of the decade and Wangaratta the benchmark late.

No team was more impressive on grand final day in the 2000s than the Roos in 2000 when they won by 108 points, but they were forced to come from the elimination final to win their second in 2003.

Wangaratta claimed the wooden-spoon in the first three years of the decade but by the end the Magpies were a force.

The long haul back to respectability for the Magpies was started by Jon Henry before Jason Lappin delivered the silverware when he took over in 2007.

The decade was also notable for the roller-coaster fortunes of Myrtleford.

The Saints played in three grand finals from 2001 to 2006, but by the end of the decade they were in dire straits with three successive wooden-spoon finishes putting the club’s future in the O and M in jeopardy.

The decade started with Corowa-Rutherglen claiming its first premiership since the merger of the two clubs in 1979.

The Roos ruthlessly dissected North Albury to the tune of 108 points which beat the previous biggest winning margin held by Wodonga since 1987 by one point.

Damian Houlihan, a rising star when the club last played in a grand final in 1992, unleashed a grand final performance to savour with his 10 goals earning him undisputed best on ground honours.

But the support cast was impressive. David Teague starred in the centre and would go on to win a best and fairest at Carlton in 2004, centre half-back Craig Tafft underlined his growing stature in the competition and Carl Dickins was irrepressible in the clinches and veterans Mark O’Donoghue, Paul Bartlett and John Kingston became deserving premiership players.

In 2000, the O and M awarded retrospective Morris Medals to players who had been denied the honour in years gone by the count-back system. Among the recipients were Corowa’s Jim Sandral who joined Rob Walker (Wangaratta Rovers) and John Brunner (Yarrawonga) as three-time winners.

The 2001 season witnessed the re-emergence of Lavington and Myrtleford and they played off in the grand final with the Panthers eventually winning comfortably despite Saints’ forward Dustyn McKenna kicking seven goals in a losing team.

John Hunt claimed the Did Simpson Medal for best-on-ground and youngster Aaron Purcell stamped his class on the game although his O and M career would be a brief one before returning to Jerilderie.

Wodonga Raiders finished third, the season highlighted by the heroics of Ben Parker, who had switched from the Roos after missing the grand final the previous year due to injury.

Corey Lambert joined a select group of coaches to win a premiership in his first season at the helm when North Albury raced away from Wangaratta Rovers in the final term of the 2002 grand final.

The Hoppers were beaten in the qualifying final by the Hawks, but recovered to beat Yarrawonga in the first semi-final and minor premier Albury in the preliminary final.

Albury’s dual premiership coach from the mid-1990s Paul Spargo made his first coaching return at Tigerland for the decade in 2002, but the Tigers imploded in the finals series.

Spargo joined Richmond as an assistant coach at the end of the 2002 season, but his successor at Albury three-time premiership player, Stuart Hodgson, couldn’t prevent a dramatic slide to the bottom of the ladder the following year.

Corowa-Rutherglen emulated North Albury in 1980 in coming from the elimination final to win the 2003 premiership.

The Roos won the preliminary final by a record 106 points over minor premier Wodonga Raiders before going onto beat Wodonga in the grand final by 35 points with full-forward Ricky Symes sealing best-on-ground honours with seven goals.

The Raiders crashed out of the finals series in straight sets and had not totally recovered by decade’s end.

Peter Tossol claimed his second flag in charge of the Roos and his former Wangaratta Rovers team-mate Rob Walker stamped his place in the O and M record books in 2003 with a fifth Morris Medal triumph.

But cruelly he would not add another game to his glittering 307-game career in brown and gold as he succumbed to a serious neck injury which forced him to travel overseas to help remedy.

Wodonga ended a run of four successive grand final losses since their last flag in 1992 by downing North Albury in the 2004 grand final.

Bulldogs coach Richard Bence became the first man to coach reserves and senior premiership teams in the O and M when Wodonga won the grand final by 41 points.

Wodonga began assembling a star studded line-up the previous season when Ben Hollands returned to the O and M to play for the Bulldogs and in the flag winning year they were further bolstered by the addition of Hollands’ brother-in-law Simon McCormick from North Albury, Matthew Shir and full-forward Darren Bradshaw, who topped the goal-kicking in the SANFL in 2003.

In 2004, Myrtleford lost the final round game against Wodonga by 240 points, but the following season would complete a stunning turnaround to finish the home and away season on top of the ladder and be the first team into the grand final.

Three-time North Albury best and fairest Travis Hodgson launched his coaching career at Myrtleford as the Saints enticed Brad Murray and Andrew Carey back to the club as well as a host of other recruits.

The Saints beat Wangaratta in a spiteful second semi-final clash which finished with Murray on report for striking Jake Bridges in an off-the-ball incident.

The O and M tribunal found Murray guilty of striking and suspended him for one game (the grand final) before the Saints successfully had the ban overturned on appeal to the VCFL in the same week Murray won the Morris Medal.

Myrtleford’s emotion-charged grand final build-up played into the hands of Lavington, which recovered from a qualifying final loss to the Magpies to reach another decider.

The result rested on a knife-edge as the Saints appeared destined to win only their second O and M flag only to be denied victory in the most gut-wrenching fashion possible.

Kade Stevens kick-started a memorable passage of play from the half-back line which finished with Darryn McKimmie marking the ball inside 50m seconds before the final siren sounded with the Panthers trailing by five points.

McKimmie, in his 200th match and unaware the siren had gone, kicked truly and the Panthers won the premiership by one point.

The 2005 season also marked the inception of the O and M Hall of Fame with legendary administrator Cleaver Bunton inducted as the league’s first legend.

The other inaugural inductees were Bob Rose (Wang Rovers), Norm Minns (Wangaratta, Benalla), Neville Hogan (Wang Rovers) and Jim Sandral (Corowa) and by decade’s end the Hall Of Fame’s ranks had swelled to 25.

Rob Walker was also made a legend of the league when he became eligible for induction in 2007.

Myrtleford rallied again in 2006 with the addition of Steve McKee and Paul Bunn in the off-season, but would once again meet with grand final heartbreak which would be the catalyst for a tailspin.

Yarrawonga had graduated to flag contender under the coaching of Bob Craig and finished the season as minor premier before encountering a hiccup in the second semi-final against the Saints.

The Pigeons earned another shot at the Saints in the grand final and by quarter time Yarrawonga had sealed its first flag since 1989.

In a record first quarter blitz of 10.7 to 1.1, the Pigeons effectively subjected the Saints to three grand final losses in six years.

But 2006 was a season to savour for the Pigeons.

Champion rover Craig Ednie, who would later coach the club, won the Morris Medal, Tim Hargreaves won the Doug Strang Medal for the O and M’s leading goal-kicker, captain Jason Wild won the Did Simpson Medal for best player on the ground in the grand final.

And Steph Tyrell, 15, took out the inaugural Toni Wilson Medal for the A grade netball best and fairest.

Wilson was one of the architects of the formation of the O and M netball competition in the early 1990s and her three sons Mick, Joe and Andrew were premiership players for Wangaratta Rovers.

Wangaratta began the 2000s in much the same way the club finished the 1990s _ on the bottom of the ladder.

But in 2007 the Magpies were premiership contenders.

Two years earlier Jon McCormick had returned to the club from Carlton and VFL club Northern Bullants to be among the competiton’s elite players.

In 2005, he polled 18 votes in the first 10 rounds of the Morris Medal before a serious knee injury cut short his season.

He missed all of 2006 before the Magpies slipped down the ladder in Jon Henry’s final year as coach, but much of the hard work Henry did in resurrecting the club’s on-field fortunes were about to come to fruition.

Jason Lappin replaced Henry as coach in 2007 and met with instant success as the Magpies won their first flag since 1976.

But there were some anxious moments along the way.

McCormick, who won the Morris Medal, injured his shoulder in a late season game against Wodonga before returning for the preliminary final when he sat on the bench for the majority of the game as the Magpies booked a grand final berth.

The Magpies won the grand final comfortably but they were far from impressed by North Albury’s determination to make life as difficult for McCormick as they could.

The bad blood between the Magpies and Hoppers spilled over the next season as Wangaratta completed back-to-back flags with a decisive win against Lavington.

Wangaratta’s charge at three successive premierships in 2009 ended when the Magpies lost a thriller to Wodonga in the first semi-final only a week after McCormick suffered his second serious knee injury in the decade.

Late in the 2008 season Albury ominously made its intentions clear about a return to finals action with the appointment of Spargo as coach when Corey Lambert appeared to be the anointed successor to Luke Carroll.

The Tigers went on a recruiting blitz with the addition of top-liners Chris Hyde, Shaun Daly, Andrew Carey and Joel Mackie to a team capable of forcing a draw with eventual premiers Wangaratta in the final round of 2008.

Albury won the final premiership of the decade in crushing fashion by trouncing Yarrawonga in the second semi-final and grand final with the victory elevating Spargo alongside Daryl Smith (Wangaratta Rovers) as a three-time O and M premiership coach _ one behind Mac Holten (Wangaratta), Neville Hogan and Laurie Burt (Wang Rovers).

The decade ended on sad note with the death of long serving O and M secretary Sonny Downs, who occupied the role for 15 seasons from 1977.

He later became an inaugural member of the O and M Hall Of Fame committee.

HOW THEY FARED 2000-2009

Lavington 68

Corowa-Rutherglen 67

Wodonga 64

North Albury 59

Yarrawonga 58

Wangaratta Rovers 53

Albury 52

Wangaratta 49

Myrtleford 40

Wodonga Raiders 39

(The formula: 10 points premiers, 9 runner-up, 8 third, 7 fourth, 6 fifth, 5 sixth, four seventh, 3 eighth, 2 ninth, 1 wooden spoon.