Premier League Grand Final - 19th September 2022
Written by Liam Emerton - CQ Today
The grand final of the men’s Football Queensland Premier League Central Coast between the Frenchville Roos and Clinton FC was an incredible finish to a great season.
It all came down to a single strike in the 72nd minute and a couple of brilliant saves that secured Frenchville’s fourth consecutive Wesley Hall Cup win.
The two top clubs of the year faced off in what was supposed to be Clinton’s home game, but torrential rain in Gladstone forced the game to be moved to Ryan Park, handing Frenchy the home advantage.
It’s hard to measure how much a ground change can shift momentum before the game but it certainly felt that things started to fall in the favor of Frenchville right from the start.
The Roos managed to hold most of the possession, and as coach Mathew Wust told CQ Today last week, the defending champions kipped playing out of the back and launched the ball further up the field.
Roos captain Jordan Miller was the recipient of a lot of those passes and made the Clinton defense work hard in tracking him.
But despite his and teammates’ attacking efforts in the first half, they couldn’t crack the Grub’s solid backline.
A strong defense has been a key feature of Clinton’s game this season and there was no surprise that they went into the break 0-0.
Opening the second half the Grub’s arguably had the better few attacks and found their feet faster than Frenchville.
That was how the first ten minutes of the second stanza played out but eventually, the Rockhampton-based squad began to control the game again.
It was still Miller that locked the most threatening for Frenchville but as the time ticked away one big opportunity landed at the feet of Harry Dean.
The dead-ball specialist stood over a free kick at the 70th-minute minute mark, lining up his shot only to see it reverberate off the crossbar.
It was the closest either team had come to breaking the deadlock, but soon after it would finally be shattered.
A loose ball was pounced on by Jake Webber who lifted the ball slightly to Tim Zimitat which the midfielder brought down using his chest before passing to Dean.
Harry ‘The Wizard’ had little space to work with but his magic left foot did enough, slotting it from outside the box into the bottom left-hand corner to give his side the lead.
It wasn’t hit particularly hard but it was placed perfectly and gave the Roos the big 1-0 advantage heading into the final 20 minutes.
It certainly could have been 2-0 shortly after when Dean played through Liam Mclean one-on-one only to have his shot skew wide due to the pressure of an out-rushing Bailey Barrett.
After that, it was mostly Clinton on the ball as Frenchville attempted to hold onto their slender advantage.
Frenchy had a couple of half chances in that final quarter-of-an-hour, but the two major moments came at the other end of the pitch.
Particularly in the last minutes of the contest when Clinton thumped the ball forward and almost had an equalizer on two separate occasions.
As the clock ticked over from regular time to the added injury time, the Grubs had their clearest sign on goal across the entire match.
A cross into the area saw a failed clearance by Frenchville which dropped straight into the path of Clinton’s Matthew Varnes.
Varnes struck the ball on the volley with venom but just a centimeter too close to Roo’s keeper Robbie Day, who made an outrageously good save to keep his side in the lead.
After maintaining the pressure for just over five minutes, Clinton thought they had their winner, but once again it was Day who saved the Cup for Frenchy.
Scott Rouse won a header inside the box and knocked it back into the path of Liam Stephen.
Stephen hit his volley with even more power and precision than Varnes’ attempt but even then, Day denied the Grubs with a top drawer full-stretched save, breaking Clinton’s hearts.
And just 45 seconds after that, the full-time whistle was blown and Frenchville had their hands on the Wesley Hall Cup for the fourth time in as many years.
