By Tyler Lewis
Shayne Allan still remembers the training session that inspired Noble Park’s prestigious premiership run in 2010.
Ahead of his 200th match for the Bulls, the crafty forward explained how the Queen’s Birthday fixture brings up some bitter-sweet memories for him, as it reminds him of a painful – but now celebrated – Tuesday night on the track.
“In 2010 we were building up, Noble is a club where you always (expect to) play finals,” he said.
“When you got there, that’s what the expectation is: play finals, compete for a flag.
“In 2010, when we first won it, I remember we had Tory Dickson, picked up a few… we had a pretty good team and were still relatively young all around 23-24.
“But we didn’t start very well, we went 4-4 and lost to East Burwood who I don’t think had won a game at that stage.
“I remember the Tuesday night at training Mick Fogarty obviously wasn’t very happy, we did two beep tests in one night – we were coming into the same game as this weekend… the top team in Balwyn.
“Fogs flogged us all that week and he set the tone from that point, we were young, but it was time to switch on, pull our heads in and realise the opportunity we had in front of us.
“From then on I think we lost one game for the rest of the year; it was a pretty impressive run.”
It wasn’t the first wake-up call Allan has received at Pat Wright Oval, revealing the first one came as a ‘naïve’ youngster straight out of the VFL.
“When I first got there, I was about 21-22, Kris Barlow was the coach at the time,” he said.
“Coming from Port Melbourne you sort of think you’re going back to local footy; you don’t really think the standard is going to be similar in terms of time and effort.
“As a 21-year-old I was a bit naïve to how good the EFL was and Div 1 – but I learned that pretty quickly.”
While the Bulls of 2010 and 2011 were impeccable across every line, Allan believes there are some similarities with the current group.
“We have lost two games, but I was saying to Hughesy (Bulls coach Steve Hughes) last night, we have an opportunity in front of us to set up our season,” he said.
“I don’t think there was many weak links in our side (in ’10 and ’11), we had a lot of star players, but when you were coming up against Balwyn who had all those AFL listed players in 2010, all it takes is good system footy.
“That’s one of the things I can compare to now, we haven’t got a lot of weak links and it’s exciting.”
In the opening round of 2022, Allan’s teammate, Kyle Martin, celebrated his 150th game.
In the highlights package for Martin, Hughes joked it was truly just a package for Allan, as he was more often than not on the receiving end of Martin’s kicks inside 50.
And though Allan and his nudge under 450 career majors for the Bulls have come from his lethality in front of goal, he does feel the relationship with some of the club’s stars have helped him get to where he is today.
“I have the same rapport with Ziggy (Alwan),” he said.
“Kyle is literally a step ahead of everyone, so you have to be one step ahead of Kyle.
“That’s how I have based my game, being able to play that step ahead.
“I have been very fortunate to have Kyle, Craig Anderson, Peter O’Brien, those types of players who are highly skilled – it’s definitely made my job a whole lot easier.
“I’m a by-product of them, really – I have been pretty fortunate to play with a lot of highly skilled players.”
The Bulls host Balwyn tomorrow in the Eastern Football Netball League (EFNL) Premier Division stand-alone game.
