Matthew Cravino in action for Williamstown’s senior side in the qualifying final against North Ballarat. 69932 Picture: EMILY LANE
BY MICHAEL ESPOSITO
MATTHEW Cravino could have hardly done much more to break into Williamstown’s senior side.
The 24-year-old won the A. Todd medal as the VFL’s best reserves player for the second year in a row at the JJ Liston Trophy night last week, polling six votes more than Box Hill’s Leigh Kitchin. He was also a tear-away winner last year.
After 15 games in the reserves, Cravino was finally selected in the first team in round 20 against the undefeated Port Melbourne.
He has not been dropped since, and polled a JJ Liston Trophy vote in the Williamtown’s round 21 demolition of Box Hill. He also was a part of Williamstown’s monkey-off-the-back win against North Ballarat in the qualifying final, and played his role in the Seagulls’ 83-point preliminary final win against Werribee.
With coach Peter German not wanting to make many changes for this Sunday’s grand final against Port Melbourne, Cravino is a real chance to retain his spot.
It’s worth noting that Cravino also won Williamstown’s reserves best-and-fairest award in 2009. That’s three years of dominance at reserves level. Yet he continues to be a fringe player due to the limited opportunities for VFL-listed players to break into the senior side. With Western Bulldogs players commanding up to 15 spots, there’s usually only seven to eight spots available for VFL-listed players.
It’s particularly tough if two of those players are VFL Team of the Year midfielders.
“They’re pretty much pencilled in this week I suppose,” Cravino said of players such as Ben Davies, Ben Jolley and captain Brett Johnson.
“That’s probably why we’ve been so successful in the past few years, and hopefully it can hold us in good stead this weekend.”
“That’s the main aim about playing footy, playing at the highest level you can,” the understated Cravino said.
“There’s only seven or eight spots available so it makes competition healthy, because we’re all fighting to get the best out of each other.”
Cravino is only the second person to have won back-to-back A. Todd medals, but despite the individual honours, he has a no-frills team-oriented mindset.
“It was a bit of a surprise actually. I wasn’t expecting to win again but I suppose it was not a bad individual achievement to win it. But obviously its teams success is what I play for,” he said.
“I’d hand it back in a heartbeat to get the game back on the weekend that we got beat in (the reserves lost to Coburg by 49 points in the preliminary final).
But Cravino could still taste premiership success if he can squeeze his way into a Williamstown side jam-packed with talent.
