Ovens and Murray Football Netball League preview with Andrew Moir and Georgia Smith. Discussing best recruits, likely grand finalists, and all this football and netball.
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00:00Fantastic. Hi, my name's Andrew Moyer and welcome to the 2025 Umbers and Murray
00:04Football and Netball League season and I'm joined by my colleague Georgia Smith.
00:08Hi Georgia, how are you? Good, thanks Fred, how are you? Well thank you. Now we often talk about a long
00:12offseason. Everyone in any sport talks about a long offseason but it literally
00:16has been. It'll be 195 days from the grand final to the first game on Saturday
00:22and for those who missed finals last year it's gonna be 231 days. That's
00:27nearly eight months without a competitive game of footy. Again, everyone
00:31says it's a long offseason but it literally has been. Let's jump into the
00:35netball. What's your thoughts on the netty this year? Yeah, I think it's shaping up
00:39to be a pretty strong competition but for me I think Coral or Rubber Glen
00:44with the recruits that they've got. Emily Laracy coming back in from
00:47apprenticeship with Yarrawonga and then Gabe McCrae coming in from Albury as
00:51well. I think Coral is going to be pretty strong this season. Terrific. Same top
00:56three as last year do you think? Like we finished with Yarrawonga, Raiders and
00:59Coral or Rubber Glen. Do you think it's going to be the same top three? Yeah, I think it's
01:02going to be pretty consistent. Yarrawonga are going to be strong again. I would say
01:06they've maintained a lot of players from last season and same with Raiders and
01:10Raiders have picked up Lily McKimmy from Wodonga as well so she's going to be
01:15very handy for them. Who's your recruiter this season? Who's the name
01:19player you think will make the biggest impact? Yeah, I think Lily off the
01:24back of last season with Wodonga. She had a sensational season there and she's
01:28only really young so I think she's going to be a really great recruit for Wodonga
01:33Raiders and she can play at either end of the court. And then yeah, like I
01:36mentioned before, having Gabe and Emily Laracy come back for Coral are there.
01:40Yeah, very good inclusions as well. Who plays
01:44grand final? Who wins? I'm gonna say a... No pressure. Thank you. I'm gonna say
01:53maybe Coral are Raiders grand final. Sort of similar to the prelim of last
02:00season. That was a very strong and very close contest and I yeah I think it may
02:05be, I'm gonna say Coral this year. I hope I'm not throwing you on the spot
02:09but I don't think either of those teams have won a grand final in the O&M. Yeah
02:13that's right. We've seen Raiders get so close the last two seasons, obviously
02:18two grand final appearances, so yeah it would definitely be the first for them
02:22if they were able to do it and yeah I believe Coral has been in the same
02:25position as well. Fantastic. And we should say too, I know we're sitting very close,
02:29it's only because the table is so small so we do get along well, Georgia and I,
02:32perhaps not quite that well. So if you're wondering why we're on top of each other,
02:36it's a very small table. It's like a card table actually. It is pretty close in here. My word it is, it's quite warm.
02:41Moving on to the footy, it's been another massive offseason. Gosh there's been so
02:47many, so many recruits have come in. There would be tens and tens of recruits have
02:51come in. Let's go through the recruits of the year. I mean you're looking, it's
02:56hard to go past Nathan Cooper from Wangaratta Rovers, a Werribee
02:59Premiership player, VFL Team of the Year member. Tyler Roose has come to Coral
03:05Rugby and he's had a stint here previously, we know how good a player he is.
03:08And Will Fordham from Wodonga Raiders, he played at Williamstown last year, got
03:12injured mid-year but up until that stage, or even after he got injured, he still
03:16featured in the best in 11 and 21. So late 20s, he looks like he's still in the
03:21prime of his career. So they're probably the three big recruits. Some of the
03:26stories around the season, well is Myrtleford the new North Albury? I mean
03:30you just get the impression North Albury, 20-22 Woodenspoon, 23 moved up to 6th, 24
03:37got to a pre-limb. Myrtleford, 23 Woodenspoon, 24 moved up to 8th but still had
03:43eight wins, only two wins out of the five. So can Myrtleford do it? I mean just
03:48imagine the buzz, Georgia and Myrtleford, if they were able to get up. I know
03:51there's there's plenty of pressure on them to do that and they would put
03:54pressure on themselves but gee, it'd be great for the league, wouldn't it? It would be.
03:58You love to see the small towns doing well, don't you? Yeah, and I'll ask you the
04:02same question. Grand Final Day, who do you think is going to be there and who wins?
04:07I think Rovers play Yarrawonga, sorry, against the Grand Final rematch and I reckon
04:15Rovers just. I mean Rovers are actually stronger than they were last year. I
04:20think so many of us just find it hard to believe that Yarrawonga got beaten. I
04:24mean they'd won 29 or 30 games heading into that Grand Final. They'd beaten Rovers
04:29by the best part of 12 goals, a fortnight earlier. They kicked the first couple of
04:33goals in the first six or seven minutes. They must have thought here it comes but
04:36Rovers were outstanding. And it was just, look, bitterly disappointing for
04:41Yarrawonga, naturally enough, but for the competition. We just spoke about the
04:45North Aubrey's and the Moodlefords hopefully coming up this year. Well, Rovers
04:48had been a regular finalist in recent years but to come from, they finished
04:53fifth the previous year, to winning the competition again, I know Yarrawonga
04:58would be bitterly disappointed but it was great for the competition, just gave the
05:00comp an enormous buzz. Hopefully can do the same this year. Is there anything in
05:05particular, I'm going to throw this at you off the top, is there anything in particular
05:08you're most looking forward to this year? That's a good question. Have to be the
05:13Roos wouldn't it? Cora Rutherglen in the, well probably the footy and the netball
05:17really. Yeah, yeah, the footy and netball. It'll be interesting to see how they go. Like we
05:22said before, it would be great for, I guess, the history of the league to have
05:25a Premier that hasn't won before. That would be, yeah, I suppose that would be
05:31something, yeah, something interesting if it was to fall that way. Sure, so no
05:35pressure on Rooters or Cora Rutherglen. No pressure. No pressure at all. Or Yarrawonga if they
05:40made it 11 premierships, 11 A-grade netball premierships, I think it was 10 last year. They're remarkable, just their
05:47ability to consistently be there, aren't they? Yeah. The Melbourne storm of the O&M
05:51netball, there's no doubt about that. Look, we hope everyone has a great season, kicks
05:55off on Saturday. Remember the O&M lift out was in the Bordemarle today, that's
05:59Wednesday, so hopefully April too. So hopefully everybody has a look at it.
06:03Hope you have a great season. Thanks for your time and we'll see you around the
06:06grounds.