THE COMPLETE BFNL DECADE THAT WAS SERIES:
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The 2019 season - Strathfieldsaye premiers
The 2018 season - Eaglehawk premiers
The 2017 season - Strathfieldsaye premiers
The 2016 season - Sandhurst premiers
The 2015 season - Strathfieldsaye premiers
The 2014 season - Strathfieldsaye premiers
The 2013 season - Golden Square premiers
The 2012 season - Golden Square premiers
The 2011 season - Golden Square premiers
The 2010 season - Golden Square premiers
IT was a decade that started with Golden Square's Grant Weeks as the king of the Bendigo Football-Netball League's goalsquare.
It ended with Strathfieldsaye's Lachlan Sharp as the BFNL's superboot.
And in between Eaglehawk's Matt Gretgrix just kept booting the Sherrin through the big sticks.
Sharp, Gretgrix and Weeks have been the BFNL's most prolific goalkickers of the decade - the only three players between 2010 and 2019 to boot more than 300.
Given their exploits over the past 10 seasons there was no surprise when the BFNL's Team of the Decade forward line read Sharp, Weeks, Gretgrix.
The Storm's Sharp topped the BFNL's goalkicking for the decade with 655.
The left-footer booted goals in 137 games throughout the decade, which included 17 hauls of at least 10.
And there could have been plenty more goals for Sharp too throughout the decade had he not missed all but three games in 2016 with an ACL, suffered a broken leg late in late 2018 or endured hamstring injuries as well.
Sharp is a freak of a talent who produced arguably the most memorable quarter by an individual of the decade, kicking five-last term goals in the 2017 grand final when the Storm came from 20 points down at three quarter-time to beat Eaglehawk.
That was the same season Sharp also won the Michelsen Medal and the Ron Best Medal, finishing with a year-end tally of 142 goals.
"He has an uncanny ability to kick goals; it doesn't matter whether the ball is in the air or at ground level and he probably catches a few off guard with his left foot," Sharp's three-time premiership coach, Darryl Wilson, said following his Team of the Decade selection.
"He probably didn't shine as much as he now does while we had Stephen Milne and Sam Mildren through those years and he was playing as a third or fourth forward.
"But when he got the chance to play at full-forward he became something completely different."
While Sharp was a permanent fixture throughout the decade in the BFNL, Weeks had just a three-year stint at Wade Street.
But what a three years it was - 157 goals in 2010, 130 in 2011 and a BFNL record 164 in 2012: all premiership seasons in which Weeks kicked a total of 451.
Remarkably, of the 59 games Weeks kicked goals in for the Bulldogs, 18 of them were double-figure bags, including the decade's biggest haul of 21 against Kyneton in round 15 of 2012.
Yet unlike Sharp, his goalkicking exploits weren't enough to earn Weeks a Michelsen Medal. But he did get his dues in the Heathcote District league when he won the 2015 Cheatley Medal for what was a 129-goal season at home club Colbinabbin.
Meanwhile, Hawks' fan favourite Gretgrix was a model of consistency throughout the decade.
His tally of 570 goals includes seven seasons where he kicked at least 60, with a top of 90 in 2016.
As far as the century goes, only four players for the decade topped 100 goals in a season - Weeks (three times), Sharp (twice), Justin Maddern (once) and Stephen Milne (once).
In total there were 24,262 goals kicked for the decade at an accuracy rate of 52.4%.
TOP 50 GOALKICKERS OF THE DECADE:
1 - Lachlan Sharp
(Strathfieldsaye)
Goals: 655
High: 17 Games: 137
5+: 56 10+: 17
............................................
2 - Matt Gretgrix
(Eaglehawk)
Goals: 570
High: 13 Games: 128
5+: 54 10+: 8
............................................
3 - Grant Weeks
(Golden Square)
Goals: 451
High: 21 Games: 59
5+: 46 10+: 18
............................................
4 - Ben Weightman
(Kyneton)
Goals: 278
High: 13 Games: 68
5+: 24 10+: 4
............................................
5 - Cameron Rinaldi
(Kangaroo Flat,
Maryborough)
Goals: 277
High: 7 Games: 102
5+: 14 10+: 0
............................................
6 - Sam Mildren
(Strathfieldsaye)
Goals: 243
High: 9 Games: 58
5+: 24 10+: 0
............................................
7 - Sean Williams
(Eaglehawk)
Goals: 239
High: 9 Games: 75
5+: 18 10+: 0
............................................
8 - Justin Maddern
(Kangaroo Flat,
South Bendigo)
Goals: 226
High: 12 Games: 42
5+: 23 10+: 7
............................................
9 - Matt Thornton
(Sandhurst)
Goals: 208
High: 6 Games: 101
5+: 7 10+: 0
............................................
10 - Shannon Geary
(Kangaroo Flat,
Strathfieldsaye)
Goals: 189
High: 5 Games: 108
5+: 4 10+: 0
............................................
11 - Mitch Scholard
(Kyneton)
Goals: 186
High: 9 Games: 52
5+: 16 10+: 0
............................................
12 - Darren Farrugia
(Gisborne)
Goals: 184
High: 8 Games: 58
5+: 15 10+: 0
............................................
13 - Nick Stagg
(Sandhurst)
Goals: 179
High: 7 Games: 105
5+: 2 10+: 0
............................................
14 - Kaiden Antonowicz
(South Bendigo)
Goals: 174
High: 13 Games: 40
5+: 15 10+: 3
............................................
15 - Joel Wharton
(Sandhurst)
Goals: 173
High: 5 Games: 88
5+: 2 10+: 0
............................................
16 - Lee Coghlan
(Sandhurst)
Goals: 172
High: 7 Games: 100
5+: 3 10+: 0
............................................
17 - Adam Baird
(Golden Square)
Goals: 165
High: 8 Games: 86
5+: 5 10+: 0
............................................
18 - Dylan Johnstone
(Golden Square)
Goals: 163
High: 9 Games: 47
5+: 12 10+: 0
............................................
19 - Jarrad Lynch
(Gisborne)
Goals: 160
High: 7 Games: 79
5+: 9 10+: 0
............................................
20 - Pat McKenna
(Gisborne)
Goals: 155
High: 11 Games: 40
5+: 13 10+: 1
............................................
21 - Michael Leech
(South Bendigo)
Goals: 152
High: 8 Games: 46
5+: 12 10+: 0
............................................
22 - Matthew Bond
(Maryborough)
Goals: 149
High: 7 Games: 61
5+: 6 10+: 0
............................................
23 - Matt Knox
(Gisborne)
Goals: 148
High: 12 Games: 49
5+: 9 10+: 1
............................................
24 - Tyrone Downie
(Kangaroo Flat)
Goals: 144
High: 8 Games: 44
5+: 12 10+: 0
............................................
25 - Kris Lea
(Strathfieldsaye)
Goals: 139
High: 6 Games: 62
5+: 5 10+: 0
............................................
26 - Travis Baird
(Golden Square)
Goals: 138
High: 8 Games: 59
5+: 10 10+: 0
............................................
27 - Mitch Dole
(Eaglehawk, Sandhurst)
Goals: 131
High: 6 Games: 56
5+: 2 10+: 0
............................................
28 - Tom Bartholomew
(Strathfieldsaye)
Goals: 128
High: 6 Games: 52
5+: 5 10+: 0
............................................
29 - Bryce Curnow
(Golden Square,
Strathfieldsaye)
Goals: 127
High: 9 Games: 43
5+: 9 10+: 0
............................................
30 - Ben McPhee
(Eaglehawk)
Goals: 126
High: 4 Games: 74
5+: 0 10+: 0
............................................
31 - Jake Hall
(Strathfieldsaye)
Goals: 126
High: 5 Games: 73
5+: 3 10+: 0
............................................
32 - Stephen Milne
(Strathfieldsaye)
Goals: 122
High: 9 Games: 29
5+: 13 10+: 0
............................................
33 - Ricky Symes
(Sandhurst)
Goals: 122
High: 10 Games: 29
5+: 11 10+: 1
............................................
34 - Lachlan Ross
(Sandhurst)
Goals: 119
High: 5 Games: 64
5+: 3 10+: 0
............................................
35 - Jack Geary
(Golden Square)
Goals: 116
High: 5 Games: 73
5+: 2 10+: 0
............................................
36 - Corey Jones
(Golden Square)
Goals: 116
High: 16 Games: 30
5+: 9 10+: 1
............................................
37 - Blair Holmes
(Sandhurst)
Goals: 115
High: 5 Games: 78
5+: 1 10+: 0
............................................
38 - Jake Conolan
(Gisborne)
Goals: 115
High: 6 Games: 53
5+: 5 10+: 0
............................................
39 - Hamish Morcom
(Golden Square)
Goals: 114
High: 4 Games: 70
5+: 0 10+: 0
............................................
40 - Troy Coates
(Eaglehawk,
Strathfieldsaye)
Goals: 111
High: 9 Games: 46
5+: 3 10+: 0
............................................
41 - Andrew Collins
(Sandhurst)
Goals: 110
High: 8 Games: 42
5+: 5 10+: 0
............................................
42 - Rhys Magin
(Kyneton)
Goals: 109
High: 8 Games: 56
5+: 5 10+: 0
............................................
43 - Riley Saunders
(Golden Square,
Eaglehawk)
Goals: 109
High: 6 Games: 50
5+: 5 10+: 0
............................................
44 - Tom May
(Gisborne)
Goals: 108
High: 5 Games: 56
5+: 4 10+: 0
............................................
45 - Nathan Thompson
(Kyneton)
Goals: 106
High: 8 Games: 28
5+: 10 10+: 0
............................................
46 - Thomas Wood
(Gisborne)
Goals: 104
High: 5 Games: 52
5+: 1 10+: 0
............................................
47 - Steven Stroobants
(South Bendigo)
Goals: 103
High: 8 Games: 29
5+: 8 10+: 0
............................................
48 - Shaun Comerford
(Gisborne)
Goals: 101
High: 4 Games: 71
5+: 0 10+: 0
............................................
49 - Rhys Ford
(Castlemaine)
Goals: 101
High: 8 Games: 39
5+: 7 10+: 0
............................................
50 - Max O'Sullivan
(Kyneton)
Goals: 97
High: 6 Games: 52
5+: 2 10+: 0
Have you signed up to the Bendigo Advertiser's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in central Victoria.
