VAFA Team News

St Bedes/ Mentone Tigers had a frustrating day on a superb surface against Old Trinity at Bulleen on Saturday.

• Trinity opened with a rush and were too quick and well-drilled for the Mentone team who held steadfast to only trail by 2 goals at the first break
• The second quarter was similar to the first but the Tigers started to catch and tackle the Green team in the second half of the quarter albeit without it showing on the scoreboard
• The second half was quite the antithesis of the first with St Bede's dominating the play, refusing to allow Trinity to run and spread and reigning the deficit in to 10 points at the last break and looking the likely winner with all the momentum
• Mentone came out of the blocks in the last and peppered the goals only to add 3 behinds before OTs goaled against the run of play
• Not to be denied, the Tigers resumed dominance around the contest only to, again, fail to convert getting the deficit back to 6 points late in the quarter only for the final siren beat them in a game they probably should have won given their second half supremacy notwithstanding their obvious difficulty in converting on a perfect Saturday afternoon for football
• Best for the Tigers were Tom Tyquin, Steve Tahana, Lachie Mirams and Jim Colyvan while Nathan Smith bagged another 2 goals up forward
• The Reserves were beaten by a better team on the day but refused to yield and battled gamely all day to go down by 5 goals
• Best for the Ressies were Bryce Dinger, Mitch Johnstone and John Patounas
• This week (Saturday 28th), St Bedes/Mentone Tigers Seniors and Reserves are again at home at the Fortress against premiership favourites Collegians, while the Under 19s are away to Uni Blacks and the Under 19s Development team front St Kevin's at Southern Road

Pre-season Update:-

At last, this weekend we welcome the return of local footy to Mentone.....hooray.

Firstly though, it is with great pleasure that we congratulate Peter Duffy's Mentone Cricket Club Second XI on winning the premiership in their grade last weekend at Brindisi Street in front of a sizeable and nicely biased crowd.

Premierships at Mentone are grand - well done Tiges.

And now to the footy

St Bedes/Mentone Tigers take on the local rival Beaumaris at Brindisi Street this Saturday (24th March) in what has always been the local derby (except when Parkdale occasionally pop-up.....we do love an occasional local derby with Parkdale).

Get down on Saturday to watch Under 19s at 9.00 a.m., Reserves at 11.40 and Seniors commencing at 2.00 p.m. sharp all against Beaumaris - see you there.                         Gotta love watching the rivalry between us and Beauy.

Our Senior team has completed 2 practice matches in difficult conditions of unseasonal March heat and wind against Hastings at Hastings and Mazenod at Frankston. Both games eventuating in solid wins albeit there’s still plenty of improvement left in the tank.  Our Reserves and Under 19s also had excellent hit outs with good results.

A big announcement is the exciting news that former SBMT Senior Coach, VAFA and Ormond legend of the 80s, Russell Barnes, has joined our coaching panel. (Russell, it should be noted, was the first coach to ever lift the seniors out of the depths of C Grade into B Grade in 2003 followed by finals in 2004 - unluckily losing by 3 points to Old Ivanhoe). Welcome back Russ, great to have you in the Tiger pack again.

SBMT have added a number of ex-AFL and current and ex-VFL players (amongst others) to their list in what looks to be an exciting combination of current and new talent.

The Senior Club is offering these positions to any budding young SBMT footballers who would like to get involved on a Saturday and helping out in filling these important roles.

These positions are available for our Reserves, Thirds, and two Under 19 teams and is very rewarding and a great way to get early involvement with the Senior sides of the Club.

Remuneration is available.

If you are interested please contact our Football Operation Manager Tom Brain on 0423 433 488 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The SBMT senior men’s and women’s teams have been back and hard at it for some weeks now.

The SBMT Senior Men’s teams are in a terrifically strong position. We’ve had 90 players come to train so far during pre-Christmas training!

SBMT is very excited to welcome Liam Sumner to the Tigers in 2018 as player/assistant coach of the Senior team. Liam has played 4 seasons at Greater Western Sydney and 2 seasons at Carlton. His experience will be a brilliant asset to the team this coming season.

In 2018 we have some players who will divide their time between SBMT as their home club and their VFL sides.  We are lucky to have returning players Jack Hellier (Captain, Collingwood VFL) and Kye Beveridge (Collingwood VFL). We also welcome Nathan Smith who played Sandringham VFL in 2017 and in 2018 will divide his time between SBMT and Frankston Dolphins, and Stephen Tahana, who is going between Collingwood VFL and SBMT.

The Tiges will also see the welcome return of previous SBMT best and fairest winner Pat Tyquin, after a year off with injury, and we’re looking forward to seeing a couple of players who have committed full-time to the Tigers in 2018, Ben Dance (last season at Footscray VFL) and we welcome back into the fold James Mangoni, after graduating from the Sandy Dragons.

Training will recommence for all U19s and Senior Men’s on Monday 15 January.

In the SBMT Senior Women’s team, the appointment of new senior coach Al Gailey and assistant coaches Darren Story and Georgia Wilson has resulted in plenty of enthusiasm on the track. The senior women’s team has had 3 sessions in the last 4 weeks with brilliant early commitment from both returning players and new recruits. The focus so far has been skills acquisition  along with a 1.6k time trial. Fantastic effort by all players to complete the time trial with some excellent results recorded. The most pleasing thing the coach has noted is the team's enthusiasm. He’s also been really encouraged by the level of skill which holds us in good stead for 2018. With the break for Christmas just starting, all players have a training program to complete over the summer before returning for pre-season in early Feb.  

Great work by the players and coaches so far and we can’t wait for 2018 season to start!