Gniel real deal

By Paul Pickering
EVERY grand final has its lasting image, and for Dingley it will be veteran Brett Gniel holding the ball aloft as the final siren echoed across Springvale Reserve on Saturday.
It was the moment that Dingley broke a 14-year premiership drought and Gniel became the club’s first dual-premiership player.
Gniel, who was 21 when the Dingoes saluted in 1994, marked on the boundary line in the dying moments of Saturday’s clash with Heatherton.
The romantic within hoped it might end there – and the timekeeper obliged.
“It was just so sweet,” Gniel gushed in the rooms after the match.
“It could not have happened better.”
Well, to be accurate, it could have. The classy forward could have gone back and slotted his sixth for the afternoon, but his after-the-siren shot was narrow.
It was as if he was too eager to join the rapturous mob of players and fans that was already forming on the ground.
“The boys said I should have stuck the ball up my jumper and kept it, but I wanted to have a shot,” he laughed.
Gniel said it was a different feeling to the 1994 triumph.
“I was just saying to my old man (former Dingoes president Doug Gniel), ’94 was great to play with all my mates, but this is much better,” he said.
Gniel will now lead the Dingoes into the SFL’s top division for the first time next year.