Australian Football

Waubra’s emphatic triumph over Hepburn in the 2006 Central Highlands Football League grand final was the culmination of several seasons of steady improvement. In 2003 the ‘Roos managed just 6 wins from 18 matches to finish eighth (of thirteen). They improved marginally in 2004 (7 wins), and in 2005 got as far as the first semi final before losing to Clunes. In 2006, however, with the exception of a round eleven reversal at Learmonth, they emerged victorious from every match, more often than not by hefty margins. Two cases in point were the second semi final, in which they outclassed Daylesford by 49 points, and the grand final when they handed out an 85 point hiding to Hepburn.

If it had been a long time - twenty-four years - between drinks for Waubra, that is not the same as suggesting that the club was unused to premiership celebrations. Back in the 1920s the ‘Roos went top on three occasions, while the ensuing decade brought four grand final appearances for two more flags. After the war, during the course of a thirty season stint in the Lexton Football League, Waubra repeatedly proved itself one of the competition’s leading forces, particularly during the first decade and a half of its involvement. Between 1946 and 1961 the seniors contested thirteen out of a possible sixteen grand finals, winning eight of them.

In 1975, Waubra transferred from the LFL to the Clunes Football League. Four years later, the CFL merged with the Ballarat and Bacchus Marsh Football League to form the Central Highlands Football League, which is where the ‘Roos have competed ever since. Their first senior grade flag in the new competition arrived in 1982 when they just held off a fast-finishing Dunnstown to win a gruelling grand final by 3 points, 16.14 (110) to 15.17 (107). Aside from praise for the victor’s gutsy performance, the match attracted headlines of the wrong sort following a behind the play incident in which Waubra’s Stephen Head was brutally felled, and ended up in hospital with his jaw, which had been broken in four places, wired up, and twenty stitches in his mouth. The police launched an investigation into the incident, but were unable to bring any charges owing to a lack of evidence.

Following their 2006 premiership triumph the 'Roos again made the grand final a year later but it ended in disappointment when the side succumbed by 8 points to Daylesford in a low scoring match. They next made the grand final in 2011 when they accounted for Daylesford by 25 points to bring up their fifth CHFL premiership. Although there have been no further flags the 'Roos have remained one of the leading teams in the competition, routinely contesting the finals. For example, they finished seventh in 2015, 2016 and 2017, while the 2018 season saw them getting as far as 2 point preliminary final loss to eventual premiers Hepburn..