Australian Football

Karingal

Formed in 1969, the Bulls competed initially in the Nepean Football League, reaching a grand final in their fifth season. However, they proved unable to get past Frankston YCW, to whom they lost by 69 points. This proved to be Karingal’s only senior grade NFL grand final appearance.

After the 1986 football season the NFL merged with the Mornington Peninsula Football League to form the two division Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League. Karingal commenced in Division Two of this competition, and reached successive grand finals in 1988 and 1989 only to lose on both occasions, to Frankston YCW and Red Hill respectively. When the MPNFL expanded to comprise three divisions in 1995 following the admission of clubs from the South West Gippsland Football League, which had disbanded, the Bulls found themselves placed in the northern division. In their second season in this league they enjoyed senior grade premiership success for the first time when they accounted for Doveton in the grand final by 37 points, 19.7 (121) to 12.12 (84). A second flag followed in 1999 , once again at the expense of Doveton, when Karingal scored a 19.6 (120) to 15.13 (103) grand final triumph in what was effectively the same league as in 1996, albeit that it been renamed the Peninsula Division.

The Bulls' most recent grand final appearance came in 2011 in Peninsula Division. Opposed by Frankston YCW they went down by 69 points. After that, fortunes took a down turn, with the nadir coming in 2014 and 2015 when they suffered the indignity of successive wooden spoons. Since then there has been steady improvement with the Bulls finishing third from last in  2016 and second from last in 2017 before qualifying for the finals in 2018 for an ultimate finishing position of fourth.