Country Championships: Five Lower South West footballers feature in Regional Districts’ colts division two win

Some of the Lower South West Football League’s brightest young stars featured as Regional Districts won division two of the Country Championships colts competition on Friday. Southerners’ Tayten Smith and Hamish Omodei, Deanmill’s Kai McGinty, Tigers’ Jed Edwards and Bridgetown’s Sam Doherty represented the side made up of associations who do not send their own team to the carnival across Thursday and Friday. At Guildford Grammar School on Thursday, the Dogs lost their first game of the pool stage to Kimberley by eight points but bounced back with a win over Avon-Mortlock by 37 points and West Pilbara by 24 points to finish second in the group and secure a place in the decider. In Friday’s grand final at East Fremantle’s The Good Grocer Park, they were able to atone for their earlier loss to the Spirit a day earlier by cruising to a 46-point victory. Ahead by 13 points at the main break of the decider, the Dogs made a certainty of the result with a dominant second half where they stacked on eight goals, which included a run of four in a row through the third term. Having finished as the winners of division two in what was the first time the colts competition was split into two tiers, the grand final victory has seen Regional Districts earn promotion to the top division at next year’s championships, where they are set to come up against neighbours South West, reigning champions Peel and Great Northern. An impressive carnival saw Smith earn a place in the carnival’s All Stars side, being one of two Regional Districts players selected alongside Goldfields’ Albert Leveney.