Round 15 of the Club XVIII competition is done and dusted and with that sees the end of the home and away season, with the Crocs finishing in second position with a 10 – 2 win-loss ratio, 2 byes and a forfeit. As it has stood for nigh on twenty years, another August campaign begins for the Crocodiles, with the familiar smell of Wick Burgers in our nostrils and gale force winds in our hair (or across our bald domes) out at VAFA HQ this Sunday against arch enemies OM’s.

A quick recap of the season thus far for our learned followers will go some way to paint the picture that sees our arrival back on the hallowed turf of Elsternwick. The pre-season officially kicked off on January 27 for the early openers and with the recruiting drive in full swing saw our numbers swell to over thirty players by the time March rolled around. It was great to welcome a new group of players to club, including Will ‘Alby’ Martin (Turvey Park), Craig Marsh (Dubai Dragons), Anthony Favaloro (West Brunswick) and Rob Leon (Southern Saints), as well as our returning players, the brothers Silk – Nick and Tim, fresh from a South American sojourn and ex-Senior OXFC players Justin Arnold and Nick Corcoran. The group had a very different dynamic to past years, with Mark Davies one of the last remaining players from the golden age of the Diles (circa 1990-2007), thus enabling the group to assert themselves upon the newly restructured Club XVIII competition.

Our competition was hard to run a form line through, with a mixed bag of teams thrown together, however we could best judge that our stiffest competition would be the varsity boys at Uni Blacks and the always consistent Old Melburnians, and we weren’t wrong. The Crocs whipped through the first few rounds with patches of excellent football, but for the most part some gritty, hard fought victories. As is always the case for any team that dons the Red & Black, and in our case Green, is safe in the knowledge that each week our opposition will load up their side with every ring-in they can get hold to get a win against us, we even had St Bernards switch their entire Third XVIII and Club XVIII teams in effort to knock us off, all to no avail!

At the half way point we were sitting on top and undefeated, beating both Uni Blacks and OM’s, the later in our best performance to date – with the highlight of 2010 so far being Nicholas Hepburn Quinn slotting home 9 straight from 10 possessions at Albert Park. During the year, our implementation of team rules and structures at training and on match-day have been excellent and the improvement shown in many players has been a credit to their application and ability to play to instruction. Alas our perfect season was ruined by a poor showing against Uni Blacks in going down by 2 points and then a few weeks later in a finals preview, we lost to OM’s by 6 points, leaving us in second spot and facing off in the second semi for the all important spot in the GF on August 22. We have had many highlights along the way, however the focus is now fairly and squarely on getting across the line this Sunday against OM’s at the Wick. With a full roster to pick from there will no doubt be some headaches at the selection table, however after fielding 44 different players at various times this season, I have no doubt that we will have the cattle on the park to get the business done when it counts most!

The Crocodiles have a proud history within the most successful club in the VAFA and appreciate the support shown by all involved. We ask that all OXFC players and supporters get along to Elsternwick to support the team this Sunday at 2.00pm, in what will no doubt be the first of many finals for the club in the next two months.