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STATE CHAMPIONS
1998 Intermediate Boys Football
Our most stacked team of all-time in terms of future AFL talent. Three future AFL players (Year 10 and Captain Sean O’Keefe, and Year 9s Steve Johnson and Karl Norman), equal to the 1999 Intermediate team the following year. However this team gets the edge, with Year 10 Daniel Breese (drafted to Melbourne) who left town during the campaign.
The team won the Semi Final by 17 goals against Western Port Secondary College, and then State Final by 17 points against Belmont High School at Sandringham. Down by 2 points 7 minutes into the last quarter of the Final, a goal to the freakish Simon “Magic” Nolan put us in front, and then goals to two future AFL players (the mercurial Year 9 Steve Johnson and Captain Sean O’Keefe) sealed the Title.
The team had one of the strongest Year 9 cohorts in Victorian School Football history. For 8 of the Year 9s, it was their 2nd Title in 3 years, having won the 1996 Year 7 Title, winning the Final by 70 points at Windy Hill against Brauer College. For 5 of those (Doody, Johnson, Norman, Gamze and Stamp) and Coach John Evans, it became a record 3 State Titles in their 4 years, when winning the 1999 Title as Year 10s by 37 points against Kyabram Secondary College at Dookie. They are the only 5 of our boys, and only Coach, to ever win 3.
On top of that, 4 of the Year 11s (O’Keefe, Nolan, Ben Simpson and Matt McCallum) were strong enough to be in the powerful 1999 Senior team that won the Herald Shield by 53 points at Waverley Park against Ballarat High School.
It was Captain Sean O’Keefe that was the star of this 1998 side. He would play 6 games with Carlton, become a 2-time VFL Premiership player and Best & Fairest for Sandringham, make a VFL Team Of The Year, win a League B&F in Western Australia, and return home to win 2 B&Fs for the Rovers.
At this time (1998) he was already in his 2nd year of Ovens & Murray Thirds for Wangartta Rovers, and would play in their 1998 Thirds Premiership as a Year 10. He had starred in the Under 16 Vic Country team in 1998, so much so he was picked in the All Australian AIS Academy Under 17 team which played against Ireland, becoming regarded as one of the best 22 footballers his age in Australia. Carlton would draft him at the end of 2000, his Year 12 year.
Steve Johnson of course would become an AFL legend – 293 games, 3-time Premierships with Geelong, 3-time All Australian, 2-time Geelong Leading Goalkicker, 1x Norm Smith Medal (and could easily have been awarded a 2nd Norm Smith with his 4 match-winning goals in the 2011 win against Collingwood), and a 3rd place in the Brownlow Medal. Many would pick him as their Forward Flanker the AFL Team Of the Last 25 Years (2000-2025).
Johnson shortly after this Final, single-handedly won Tigers the 1998 U17 Junior League Grand Final as a skinny Year 9 playing against Year 12s, kicking 5 goals, 3 of them brilliant (2 snaps on his opposite side), but was somehow overlooked for the U15 O&M Schoolboys that year, and again for the U16 Murray Bushrangers in 1999. After playing Thirds as a Year 10 for the Wangaratta, he the next year at Year 11 he was the star of the Wangaratta Magpies Thirds team, leading them to the Grand Final and finishing 2nd on the League Goalkicking. In 2001 as a Year 12 though when they finally picked him, he was U18 All Australian within months of playing his 1st Bushrangers game. He also filled in for a game for the Magpies Seniors, and up to the point he broke his arm halfway through the 3rd quarter, he’d had.. 43 possessions.
Karl Norman played 27 AFL games for Carlton, but most say he had the talent to play 200. Post-Carlton, Leigh Matthews called him about playing for the Brisbane Lions, but he didn’t call back. Western Bulldogs tried to recruit him post-Carlton, but he declined in preference to returning home to the country. His father Steve was famous as one of the greatest and most freakishly talented Ovens & Murray players of all time, winning 7 Senior Premierships with the Wangaratta Rovers and kicking over 1000 goals.
During this year (1998) Norman played Ovens & King Seniors (as a Year 9 only 15 years old). He two years later start Pre-Season trials with the Murray Bushrangers, but stopped going, and instead won the 2000 Rovers Thirds Best & Fairest and played some Senior games as a Year 11. In his Year 12 year, he won the 2000 Seniors Best & Fairest for Glenrowan – surely one of the youngest O&K Senior Best & Fairest winners in history. At 19 he dominated at Centre Half Back for the Rovers Seniors, took 15 marks in a game, was Runner-Up in the B&F, and was drafted to Carlton months at the end of 2002. He was one of the extreme few of that era to be drafted without having played either TAC Cup (now known as the Coates Talent League) or VFL.
Outside the 4 draftees, nobody else was part of the Bushrangers or Schoolboys systems, but there was a deep array of talent otherwise.
Year 9 Joe Doody, the following year, became one of the rare Year 10s in that era to be strong enough to play O&M Thirds. He that year held down the Back Flank in the 1999 Wangaratta Rovers Premiership team as a Year 10, and would later Captain them. He was Captain of both the 1996 and 1998 State Title outfits.
Year 9 Heath Stamp was a strong midfielder at that time, and won the Ken Farrell Medal (League Best & Fairest) in the Junior League (Under 15s) with 28 votes, with fellow Year 9 Matt Millar was Runner-Up on 22 votes. Year 9 Frances Sippin would two years later win the 2000 McCormick Medal (League B&F Under 17s).
Ruckman Ben Simpson would play some Senior games for the Magpies, before moving to Melbourne. Matt Bell would Captain the Magpies Thirds 2 years later. Simon Nolan, nicknamed “Magic” by his teammates, would star in the 1999 Rovers Thirds Premiership team, turning the game in the 3rd quarter.
Of note is that during this same year, Ruckman Ben Simpson and key midfielder Shaun O’Neill (also shortly afterward key players in the Tigers 1998 U17 Premiership) became Australian Champions in Aerobics for the 2nd year in a row. Surely no other boys have ever achieved that Double. Simpson may be the most impressive All Rounder in the team. – he was also a Mountain Biking State Champion. He ended up working long-term as the Fitness Director at French Ligue 1 Soccer giant Paris Saint Germain.
GOALKICKERS: Sean O’Keefe 8, Daniel Breese 5, Josh Palling 5, Tim Sheldon 4, Steve Johnson 3, Simon Nolan 3, Brett Norris 2, Matt Bell 2, Adam McGennisken 1.
BEST PLAYER VOTES: Tim Sheldon 10, Matt Bell 8, Sean O’Keefe 6, Joe Doody 5, Brendan Nugent 4, Matt McCallum 3, Daniel Reese 3, Joe Doody 2, Steve Johnson 2, Heath Stamp 2, Shaun O’Neill 1.
