Australian Football

Traralgon

Traralgon was a member of the Gippsland Latrobe Valley Football League for many years, acquiring a competition record seventeen senior grade premierships. However, it took the club a while to make the initial breakthrough, and the first three grand finals it contested - in 1956 against Moe, 1957 against Sale, and 1958 against Trafalgar all resulted in defeat. The Maroons had to wait until their fourth grand final appearance, in 1960 against Morwell, to notch up their first premiership, which they did by 8 points after a close, energy-sapping tussle.

The 1960 grand final appearance was the first of seven in succession for the Maroons, with further flags coming their way in 1963 against Bairnsdale, and 1964 and 1965 at the expense of Morwell. After missing the 1967 grand final Traralgon promptly won the next two, thrashing Moe by 69 points in 1968 and overcoming Yallourn by 20 points the following year.

The 1970s proved somewhat less fruitful than the 1960s but the Maroons still managed to qualify for half a dozen grand finals, winning two of them. It was an identical story in the 1980s, with the Maroons triumphing over Leongatha in the 1980 grand final and Morwell seven years later, but going down in the grand finals of 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1989. 

During the 1990s the Maroons performed even better and more consistently than they had in their previous halcyon decade, the 1960s. Only in 1996 and 1997 did they fail to qualify for the grand final, and this was for the simple reason that they spent those two seasons competing in the VFL. This proved to be a somewhat chastening experience as they only managed a total of  4 wins and a draw from the 36 matches contested, but on resuming in the GLVFL they immediately picked up where they had left off by capturing a hat trick of premierships.

The 2002 season saw the GLVFL merging with the West Gippsland Football League to form the West Gippsland Latrobe Football League, later renamed the Gippsland Football League. With senior grade premiership triumphs in 2005, 2011 and 2015 Traralgon now have a total of twenty senior grade flags to their credit. Their 2015 success was fairly emphatically achieved courtesy of a 12.11 (83) to 7.11 (53) grand final defeat of Leongatha. Since claiming that twentieth premiership in 2015 the Maroons have continued to perform strongly, finishing third in each of the ensuing three seasons.