On Tuesday the 30th of August a combination of Year 7 and 8 boys participated in the Bushrangers Cup, a carnival ran annually by the Murray Bushrangers Football Club. The carnival consisted of a round robin format where the Galen boys got to participate in 4 matches of football playing against Marion College, FCJ Benalla, Yarrawonga College and also Wangaratta High School.
Galen’s campaign kicked off against Yarrawonga College with Galen prevailing by a margin of 26 points. Only some inaccurate kicking from the Galen forwards prevented the margin from being even greater finishing with a final score of 3.11 29. In the following two games Galen was able to successfully defeat FCJ Benalla and Marion College by margins of 19 and 15 points respectively.
Galen’s final match against Wangaratta High School was shaping up to be a very exciting affair, with both sides going into the match undefeated and a win ensuring Galen would take home the Bushrangers Cup. But it wasn’t to be, with Wangaratta High School proving far too strong from the outset against a determined Galen outfit. A 20 point halftime deficit proved to be costly with the final score being Galen 0.2 2 to Wangaratta High School’s 5.2 32.
The Galen team put in a great effort throughout the day to finish 2nd overall behind Wangaratta High School only on percentage after 3 teams (Galen, FCJ Benalla and Wangaratta High School) all finished with 3 wins for the day after FCJ upset Wang High School in the final game of the day. Galen had a number of players put in consistent performances across the course of the day with Nick Cox being named Galen’s best player for the day. Other players to feature prominently throughout the day were Hugh Amery, Brydon Robbins, Sam Peters, Nathan Schmidt and Hamish Falla. A big thank you to Mr Burt who did a great job coaching the boys on the day. The help of Murray Waite and all the students who were goal and boundary umpires on the day was also much appreciated.

Michael Clark