2011 Season

2011

The club Executive remained unchanged for the 7^th year. Preseason training began on the 3/11/2010 at Mace Oval in Mt Martha. New coaches were appointed for the 2011 season. Damien Park: Supers, Gerald Meyer: Masters and Wayne Halbert: Legends (O/47’s) are the coaching panel. We were able to move training to Alexandra Park on the 16^th of March. There were big changes to the league structure for season 2011. 2 more teams were added to the Legends to give 18 teams. The Supers competition was changed to Premier, North Zone and South Zone divisions. Masters was split in to 2 divisions of Premier Masters and Zone Masters. These changes were good for the Raiders because it meant that we played clubs in our area and didn’t have to travel to the northern suburbs for some of our games. The teams in South Zone were Raiders, Frankston, Cranbourne, Carrum Patterson Lakes, Hallam, Dingley, Knox Lions, Parkdale, Bayside Saints and Eastern Rovers. It was a mix of 2^nd & 3^rd division teams but a lot less travel to play games. Southern Saints and Federal Bayside merged to form Bayside Saints and won the South Zone Grand Final defeating Dingley. The Raiders finished in 4^th place but lost their Semi Final to Bayside Saints. The league also introduced extra games for some clubs in Rd4 and Rd10. The Rd4 games were held when Premier Div had a bye and the Rd10 games were held on Zone Semi final day. These were games for Masters and Legends teams only but the results did not count on the ladders. This meant that our Legends and Masters played 10 rounds while our Supers played 9 rounds. With 18 teams in the Legends division we only played teams in our area with the Masters and Supers but we did have 3 games that the Legends played at other venues. In the Masters division there were 13 teams in Zone Masters but we didn’t play them all. In the Masters round 7 game against Hallam at the Doveton Eagles ground, the Masters full forward Andy Burriss kicked a League and club record 17 goals. He went on to win his 2^nd Masters League goal kicking award with 39 goals. The Raider Masters team finished on top of the ladder to qualify for the Challenge Final for the 3^rd season in a row. They had only 2 losses for the season. Rd2 they lost to Bayside Saints by 30 pts and to the same team in the Rd10 extra game by 34 pts. The Challenge Final was between the Raiders and Melbourne at Highett. The Raiders won by 4 pts with Peter Daniel awarded the match ball by the Umpires as BOG. This win was the first “Grand Final” won by the club. The Supers got into the final four in the last round (rd9) after they beat Easters Rovers and Bayside Saints beat Frankston by 4pts, The Raider Supers got off to a shaky start to the season and after Rd5 were 2 wins and 3 losses after being beaten by Dingley in Rd5. They then won four in a row to finish strongly and make the finals. The club had 5 home games for the season with all 3 teams playing. The Rd10 Legends and Masters home games against Bayside Saints were transferred from the Raiderdome to Frankston Pines ground and played before the South Zone Semis Finals. In Rd 8 the Raiders won back the Raiders/Tigersharks shield with wins in the Supers and Masters but no netball was played. We had 16 new players play their first game for the club in 2011. In Rd 9 Shane Turner became the 2^nd Raider to play 150 games for the club. Shane has played at the club since the inaugural season in 1996. Mark Leonard, Troy Arnott and Andy Evans played their 100^th games for the club. Troy Arnott played his 100 games in a row with out missing a game since he started at the club in 2002. During the season the Raiders helped the South Mornington Tigerettes by having them train with us at the Raiderdome every couple of weeks. The Club Best & Fairests for 2011 were Pat Foy in the Supers, Mark Leonard in the Masters and Frank Engel in the Legends. At Presentation Night Mark Leonard received the “Stephen Knight” award. Gordon McQueen and Graeme Toms were joint winners if the “Best Clubmen Award” and Kevin Deason received “Life Membership”. Mark Leonard capped off a fantastic season by winning the League Zone Masters Best and Fairest award.