Around The Leagues: Jerramungup’s flag hopes rise, State player joins Boddington and Mt Barker’s family moment

The Advertiser brings you Around The Leagues, taking a look at football stories of players and personalities from the Great Southern, Ongerup and Upper Great Southern regions. No Holden back for Jerramungup Jerramungup have flagged their premiership intentions inside the first two weeks of the new Ongerup Football Association season. The Eagles finished last in 2024 with just two wins to their name but they already have that inside the first two rounds of this year’s league competition. A crushing 122-point round one victory over Newdegate was backed up by another superb performance on Saturday, this time knocking off reigning premiers Lake Grace-Pingrup. The Eagles have now added talented youngster Riley Holden to their side, with the Upper Great Southern product moving to the Great Southern town for work. Holden is a premiership player with Boddington and has played a couple of games in recent years with the Eagles. He played for Wickepin last year and featured in seven WAFL games for South Fremantle. Holden had made the move to play for the Bulldogs in 2025 but after one reserves game in round three, he has found a new home. With Tate Barrett (two goals) Ben Hislop, Alex Baum and Brendan Lee all firing and Holden kicking four goals on debut, the Eagles came from 11 points down against the Bombers to win by six points in round two. The Bombers were playing their first game of the season and rolled out boom recruit Justin Joyce who was named in the best players along with Claremont colts player Linkin Eaton who bagged three majors. Eagles stocked up in flag defence Boddington show no signs of dropping away in the Upper Great Southern Football League competition, with the 2024 premiers fielding a very strong opening round team on Sunday. The Eagles played on their maximum 42 player points with the big inclusion of former WAFL State player Mitchell Dobson. Dobson comes to the UGSFL as a five-point player having played several WAFL seasons with East Perth and West Perth. He featured in the 2023 State game, kicking a goal against South Australia. After spending last season playing with Scarborough in the Perth Football League, Dobson has joined a stacked Eagles side in the country. Dobson didn’t mess around, kicking five goals on debut to combine with spearhead Lloyd Padwick (six goals) as they put Kukerin-Dumbleyung to the sword winning the season opener by 70 points. Former Peel Thunder midfielder Zak Pretty is back again for the reigning premiers who have also added Jarrod Salmeri. Salmeri hails from Boddington but has returned after seven seasons with South Fremantle in the WAFL, playing 95 games across colts, reserves and league. The Eagles side also contains former Subiaco speedster Harry Cabalzar, veteran Matthew White and ex-South Fremantle player Ben Sherry. Dion Anthony made a strong return to Wickepin as player-coach, leading the Warriors to a 35-point win over Narrogin on Saturday. The Warriors rolled out ex-Collingwood player Kayle Kirby who booted four goals while Anthony chipped in with two majors. Special family moment for the Ballards The Ballard family had a moment to remember on Saturday with father Ryan and his three sons playing in the same league game together. The four Ballards ran out for Mt Barker in their round one clash against Royals in the Great Southern Football League on Saturday. Ryan has taken up umpiring in the past few years but took the chance to play a sentimental one-off game with sons Tristan, Seb and Jared. Tristan has returned home to the Bulls to link up with his siblings and Ryan, who had done a large part of the Bulls pre-season, was keen to play alongside his boys if the chance arose. The moment was made even sweeter by a Bulls victory, as they downed the Lions by 23 points. In the opening round of the GSFL, Railways won a fifth straight Anzac Day clash over North Albany and reigning premiers Albany were too strong for an improved Denmark-Walpole. Great Southern duo named in State squad Around The Leagues featured this talented pair in our first edition of 2025 last week and right on cue, their names have popped up again. WA named the State under-18s squad ahead of the national championships and Lake Grace-Pingrup’s Lucas Robinson and Railways’ Robert Farmer have been included as train-on players. Both Great Southern teenagers are bottom age players in the squad, selected predominatnly to gain experience to train, play and get accustomed to role-specific training, according to State coach Marc Webb. Robinson, who hails from Tarin Rock, had another superb WAFL colts game on Friday with 23 touches while Farmer who plays for Claremont had the bye. The initial State 18s squad of 34 players for the national carnival was named last Thursday. Got a footy story from our region to share? Email cameron.newbold@albanyadvertiser.com