The Mininera and District Football League season was completely dominated by Tatyoon which lost two games in the home and away by two and one point and finally added premiership honours to the club in 2016.

Credit can be directly aimed at Coach Adrian Pilgrim and Captain Sean McDougall and key administrators President Sue Knight and Secretary Jo Armstrong and the committee for guiding the club in recruiting a team proving the best Tatyoon have had since its previous premiership in 2011.

Having gained the knowledge of what was required from losing four of the last six grand finals, it certainly came together last weekend.

The support of country football and netball was evident by a large crowd exceeding 1600 who enjoyed the day and were catered well by the Glenthompson-Dunkeld Football Club.

The record grand final crowd was back in 1954 at the Mininera ground opening between Glenthompson and Lake Bolac who were premiers.

Three clubs from the final five of 2015 continued to make a presence in 2016 with the Pumas and Glenthompson-Dunkeld dropping out.

The two major improvers were Wickliffe-Lake Bolac and Hawkesdale-Macarthur.

Another club to improve was Woorndoo-Mortlake who finished three games out of the top five from two games better than 2015 wooden spooners. 

The league has had a busy year with the introduction of the points system which appears to be working well except for a couple of minor issues.

The introduction for the coming season of the salary cap will place another workload on the voluntary administrators of rural community clubs.

The future viability of junior football particularly from the smaller communities is a major issue and the league has held two forums of clubs in addressing the concern but the issue may not be solved with the current competition format.

Congratulations to all sides winning their netball finals.

It was certainly a changing of the guard.