Sport
10 April, 2026
WHO THE CHALLENGERS FEAR MOST IN 2026
BRIDGEWATER is favoured to win the Loddon Valley premiership this season.
That’s the season-eve prediction of league coaches and leading pundits.
They see The Mean Machine ending Marong’s four years of supremacy in the league.
Bridgewater and Marong fought out the grand final last season and are expected by most to be at the top of the ladder again.
However, two of the coaching plotting to end the reign see the Malone Park Panthers snagging a fifth flag on the trot.
But in a season where local football could even up, there’s some belief that Inglewood will break through in the club’s 150th year.
“Inglewood as premiers, beating Bridgewater in a grand final played at Newbridge,” one coach coach told me this week.
He had support that the omens would be with the Woodies but ended settling on the club’s southern neighbour.
‘A rival coach singled out the Mean Machine’s “star power” and ability to continue refreshing their list while not losing too many key players as the main reason for his prediction.
Coaches were not permitted to select their own team as premiers.
Pyramid Hill recruit Jhye Baddeley-Kelly was overwhelmingly tipped to win the Frank Harding Medal for the competition’s best and fairest player.
He finished in the top three of the North Central league’s Feeny Medal and won Boort’s best and fairest award in both of the two years he spent with the Magpies.
Inglewood’s Bregon Cotchett was one of three other players named as the likely Harding medallist, picked by four coaches, with a surprise packet, the Mean Machine’s Oscar McKinley.
Another Bridgewater player to be nominated was midfielder Luke Ellings.
Coaching rivals surveyed this week didn’t see Last year’s league medallist Lachie Sharp won no best and fairest nominations this season, but the Mean Machine spearhead andf mentor was almost unchallenged as likely top goalkicker, with his predicted final tally ranging from 85 to 118.
Bears Lagoon Serpentine’s mercurial Josh Mellington won a single nomination, with a prediction that he would kick 128 goals.
Mellington will miss the first two matches recovering from surgery, so he will need to get cracking when he returns.
Four of those who picked Sharp thought he would not hit the century mark for a third season in a row, with two others tipping he would kick exactly 100 goals.
Sharp’s new teammate Mitch Patten could “steal the majors” as one coach said he had heard “whispers that the Bridgey coach would play further upfield this year, with Patten as the deepest forward”.
In the end, however, he talked himself out of that decision and switched back to Sharp.
There was a lot of love for Newbridge in the “biggest improvers” category.
All respondents but two nominated the Maroons, who have recruited very strongly for the new season, with another naming both Newbridge and Inglewood, which climbed the ladder to third last season. Newbridge finished second last in 2025.
Pyramid Hill’s midfield gun Xavier Emmerson won the most nominations for the young player most likely to emerge as a senior star in 2026, picked by three of this year’s coaches.
Bears Lagoon Serpentine’s Jaxon Addlem Marong’s Cooper Hale, Inglewood’s Tyler Murphy, Calivil’s Liam Stephens, Macorna’s Sam Whinfield, Pyramid Hill’s Jamarson Tewhata, Newbridge’s Baxter Ash and Mitiamo’s Ollie Lythgo were the others to be nominated.