Grand Finals '19 - Demons v Emus (Social)

Eoin Kenny | 19.08.19

South London Demons 3.6.24 def. Ealing Emus 1.10.16

The super 3’s and Grand Finals are what Cheyno and hand grenades of VB are to the Bogan world... they just go together!! 2015,16,17,18 and now 2019! The super 3’s are the Premiers of the AFL London Social division for the 5th time in a row!! We finally achieved #DEE5 😀😀😀😀

The day started in bright sunshine, with the team meeting at our spiritual home bright and early at 7.15am for the cross London journey to Portsmouth Hackney Marshes, for the grudge match of the year... Our old sparring partners, the Ealing Emus. 

With the season ending with us undefeated and a huuuge first final win, the boys were confident we could take on the Emus and notch the win we have been dreaming about all year. Ealing had other thoughts though and with all of their teams playing on their big stage they were primed to ruin the Demons Grand Final tradition.

The game started hot with Lachlan Robinson exerting influence over their huge ruckman and Darcy Looker showing the run he’s given us all year, but for all our effort we found ourselves on the end of some classic west London football and they had the early ascendency... THANK CHRIST FOR THEIR SHIT KICKING!! The Emus kicked 4 behinds before we had a sniff, Mark Brescacin having the best opportunities all day but early on the radar for us was off as well. Darcy, Bresc, Lach and JD were doing all they could but we couldn’t capitalise either and we ended the quarter 1 point down with the score 0.3 to 0.4. 

With a stirring chat at qtr time from yours truly and 200 Wandsworth Demons supporters on the Dark Fruits already we rallied in the 2nd through the brilliance of Matt Casalbueno and some real grafting and muscle from Big Patty Mulherin who switched down back... the Emus kept coming and both Jäger and Sharps along with Dogga and Terry Unitt had their work cut out for them. JD opened the scoring for us with the first goal of the game as we kept them to another few behinds... 

The 3rd quarter showed why we were the best team all year and Ryan Hancock and Casa our on a clinic. We’d planned to use Hank all week long on the wing and it finally came to fruition. Bresc in the middle with Casa and Beychaz kept the ball moving and down back the lads were working their asses off! We nailed 2 goals for the qtr with Hank kicking a beauty on the run. 

One final rev up at 3 qtr time listened to very closely by AFL general counsel Andrew Dillon (I apologise now for all the F and C words used 😬😬) the Demons came out during and had the chance early to ice the game... inaccuracy was the word of the day and as it turned out, the first goal from the Emus put them within a kick of stealing the game... Hank kicked another behind which gave us the breathing space we needed to get over the line in a hot and tough contest for the ages! Matt Casalbueno exerted the kind of influence seen in Super 3’s folklore by messers. Brescacin, Robinson and Hoare in our years previous to win the coveted Jingle Jangle Norm Smith BOG.

Cue celebrations, photos, love and some tears from yours truly!!!

Big shout out to Chris Sharpley who played his last game for the club and as I found out over a few beers played the entire game injured after doing something in the warm up... Jäger also... well done lads, true strength. And commitment 😘 

On a final note, this is my last act as a Demon... 8 years, too many lols, a few beers, lots of WhatsApp silliness and the rest, but it’s 8 of the best years of my life with now 200 new family members and some stories that would make Charles Manson wince😬😬

Thank you Wandsworth, thank you Mark McPartland, Angelo de Iacavo, Jimmy Perrett and Xavier Holland 🙏 

Up the Dees and let’s go for bigger and better in 2020!

< Back to the news