Lake Macquarie’s long journey to the dais
The Lake Macquarie Dockers celebrated a senior women’s premiership when defeating Cardiff in the Black Diamond Plate competition in 2022. (Photo: Bruzer Photography)
BY ALEX TIGANI
Lake Macquarie’s women’s premiership coach John Janissen had a confession to make a few months after his side’s 19-point grand final win.
It wasn’t about his side’s pathway to the premiership dais or his available line-up on the day.
It wasn’t about his club’s partnership with the Fremantle Dockers or its future in the AFL Hunter Central Coast competition.
Nor was it about his gameplan which saw his side capture a 34-point lead at the start of the final term.
It was about the moment his own daughter Sheldon presented him with a premiership medal.
“My confession is that she is not a hugger so that moment was really special,” Janissen reflected.
Moments later the two lifted the premiership cup, arguably the sweetest grand final result when looking back on season 2022.
Admittedly, John had been on the premiership dais before.
As a Newcastle City player, he first celebrated an under-17 premiership in 1973.
That same season his club recorded a 17.20 (122) to 2.6 (18) senior grand final win against Gosford.
Senior grand final wins followed for the club in 1975 and 1976 and John captured his first senior flag in 1981.
The three-point grand final win against Cardiff remains Newcastle City’s tightest grand final winning margin in the club’s 140-year history.
Then came the club’s flat period.
“A lot of people don’t realise that City lost their juniors in the 1980s and they weren’t a competitive unit,” he explained.
“City went through a strong period of playing in premierships in the 1970s and funnily enough we only won the next flag in 1981.
“By the end of the decade we had (temporarily) lost No.1 Sportsground because of the earthquake and that knocked some wind out of our sails.”
As powerhouse Warners Bay captured the first four senior premierships of the 1990s, Janissen helped make City great again by coaching reserves premierships in 1993, shortly after playing his 300th game, and again in 1994.
The following year, the club then ended a 14-year senior premiership drought by defeating Warners Bay 8.12 (60) to 6.8 (44) under coach David Herring.
Janissen was awarded the Colin Neighbour Award that season.
“That grand final was my Swan Song and final year at the club,” he revealed.
The following 12 months would see some of the biggest changes in the AFL world with the announcement of a new stadium to be built at Melbourne’s Docklands, the merger of the Brisbane Bears and Fitzroy Lions and the introduction of the Port Adelaide Power ahead of the 1997 season.
It proved to be just as eventful in the Newcastle region as John and a number of key figures commenced work on the introduction of a new club.
Enter the Lake Macquarie Magpies.
“We thought we would get a club up and running because back then we had a bye in the first-grade competition,” he admitted.
“It was pretty much a pub team out of nowhere that we grafted together and the club is still there today out of those grassroots.”
The final season of the Booragul Bears rugby league club in 1996 meant the club was able to call Tulkaba Park home from its inaugural season.
The merger of the Newcastle and Central Coast competitions then meant the club had to change from the Magpies to the Crows. “We went back to a junior club after two years of seniors and built it up during the upgrade,” John admitted
By the time he was inducted as Lake Macquarie’s life member in 2006, an honour he had also received with Newcastle City and the BDAFL for his 400+ games, he had held numerous portfolios on the club committee.
So it was fitting that he would be the first senior coach to lift up a premiership, a quarter of a century after the club was founded.
“It was nice to get the monkey off the back for sure,” he revealed.
“One reserves side made the grand final and played City and didn’t quite get there.
“So the premiership was very prophetic.”
The Dockers first made the Black Diamond Plate grand final in 2020, facing a narrow loss to Singleton, before they were elevated to the top tier in 2021.
The line-up returned to the Plate competition in 2022 and finished second on the ladder with a 15-2 record.
Both defeats were to the hands of minor premier Cardiff.
Emma-Jayne Howe’s 58 goals was enough to top the league’s goal-kicking table, John was named as coach of the team of the year along with six of his players.
This included Sheldon who was named as captain.
She capped off a memorable home and away season by taking out the league best and fairest award with 22 votes, four clear of Wallsend West Newcastle’s Iesha Veness.
“She has grown up loving football from the get-go and as a player I certainly respect the effort and the workload that she puts in,” John continued.
The Dockers responded to their upset 21-point qualifying final loss to Newcastle City with a whopping 17.14 (116) to 0.0 (0) semi final win against Terrigal Avoca.
A redeeming 19-point preliminary final win over Newcastle City then proved enough to secure a grand final berth against Cardiff.
John believes his side had nothing to lose.
“We had been there two years ago and were flustered, that really helped the girls this time around,” he admitted.
“We knew quietly we had a job to do, if we controlled the middle of the ground we basically controlled the game.”
The Dockers secured the first two goals of the game via the agency of Kalari Beitsch and Kimberely Trappett.
The Hawks responded on the northern end through Eliza Schramm and Madison Beringer before Emma-Jayne Howe recaptured her side’s five-point lead at the first break.
Only Kimberley Trappett would trouble the scorers in the second term, proving to be an early contender for the best on ground medal.
“Kim is a freak of an athlete and her sister is the same,” John said.
“Top class soccer players, it is hard to get a full AFL season out of them.”
Schramm, a participant in the previous year’s AFLW national championships, slotted her second goal in the third term but it would not be enough for the Hawks.
Instead, the Dockers’ capitalised on the premiership quarter with gusto as Emma-Jayne Howe and Apryl Bailey scored two goals each.
By the time Trappett opened the final term with her third goal, BarTV commentator Cori Hopper declared that the squeaky hinges of the gate had slowly started to close.
“It was that perfect game where everything went to sync, they were ready to rock and roll by that stage,” John reflected.
“We played poorly against Singleton two years earlier in the conditions, against Cardiff I think everyone just held their nerve.”
There were emotional scenes when the siren sounded.
Lake Macquarie had now won a senior premiership.
“I always turn to my wife in those moments of times because she’s sitting with me during the whole process,” he revealed.
“Probably 5-6 minutes to go we pretty much had the vibe that we had a buffer and they weren’t going to get the 20-points they needed.”
As expected, Trappett was the recipient of the best on ground medal however ruckwoman Isabella Jennings also proved to be in contention.
“She probably went under the radar of a lot of other eyes but she dominated that ruck in the context of if I was a male player in that role it was frightening to see what she was doing with that football around the park and that sort of thing,” John added.
“Kimmy was the icing on the cake, Issy was doing the grunt work.”
Months on, John still remembers the little things that stood out on the day.
Walking into the ground, he recalled Paul Kelly’s 1986 hit ‘Leaps and Bounds’ echoing across the ground.
As the game came to its closing stages, he remembered the looks on all of his players’ faces when the reality had sunk in.
Most of all, he remembered the moment his daughter Sheldon presented him with his premiership medal.
“I have seen the hard yards that Dad has put into this club for the past 25-years,” Sheldon declared during the presentation.
“It is really nice to bring one of these home for him.”
Lake Macquarie’s journey will go full circle when playing host to Singleton on Saturday, April 15. It will be the first time the two sides have met since the 2020 grand final.
