Shepparton v Shepp United
When Shepp Bears played the teams they face in the final five rounds of the home and away season the first-time round, they finished with a 2-3 win/loss record. They will be hoping to better that result when they start the run into the finals against co-tenant Shepp United on Saturday. The Bears have clawed their way back up to 5th and now sit two games inside the top six. The Bears face a United team that may sit 11th on the ladder, but is a top 5 disposal team and also featured strongly in the contested ball game. Kyle Clarke, Jessie Cucinotta, Liam Serra and Kade Chalcraft have been standouts, but haven’t been able to influence the scoreboard enough this year. Shepp Bears are the number one disposal team in the competition (averaging 383 disposals), are the top tackling team (73 a game), are number one for hit outs and have laid more forward 50 tackles than any other team. Despite sitting 10th for free kicks for, they are now on a two-week winning run that they will be looking to extend to four before confronting the three teams that beat them the first time round – Echuca, Mansfield and Seymour. United will struggle to contain Luke Smith (36 goals, 20 of those in the last four weeks) and Lewis McShane (35 goals), with the latter having his best return – 4 goals – since Round 3 (ironically that game was against United). Ted Lindon and Bryce Stephenson will have the jobs on Kaedyn Napier (22 goals this year) and Liam Serra (20 goals), with Max Brodie another in-form Bears defender. Mitch Brett does his work at both ends and on the weekend had 26 touches (20 kicks), with 3 I50 entries and 3 rebound 50s. Prediction: Bears by 43 points
LTTM: Round 3, 2025: Bears won by 74 points
Mooroopna v Shepp Swans
After returning to the winners’ list a fortnight ago, the Swans lost their fifth game of the last six rounds when they allowed Seymour to take a 29-point lead into half time of the weekend’s game at Princess Park. The Swans outscored Seymour in the final half, but still lost the game by four goals and now sit sixth on the ladder – still two games ahead of Seymour, but with little wriggle room if they are unable to right the ship in the next two weeks. They will be expecting wins against Mooroopna and Tatura, but then have 2nd ranked Rochester (who they beat by nine points the first time round) and unbeaten Kyabram in the final round. When the Swans have enough I50 entries they are extremely dangerous. In fact, they take more I50 marks than any other GVL team. They are a long kicking, low handballing team (11th in the league for handballs, in fact) and struggle in the contested ball space (7th for contested marks, despite having taken the 2nd most marks in 2025). Mooroopna, conversely, is a high handball team (2nd in the competition) and will be hoping to keep the game in close and avoid the slick-moving Swans from taking too many uncontested marks (where they are also ranked 2nd). The Cats will be relying on Will Wood to try and reduce the dominance of Swans ruckman Mark Kovacevic, while Ben Hicks will be hoping to lead the defence in stopping James Auld (22 goals), Steele Simpson (21 goals) and Nathan Rachele (21 goals) – all top 20 players in the goalkicking. Jed Woods and Kai Madgwick have been outstanding for the Cats this year and will front up against ball-winning machine Nathan Hrovat on Saturday. This will be worth the price of admission alone.
Prediction: Shepp Swans by 51 points
LTTM: Round 3, 2025: Swans won by 28 points
Seymour v Mansfield
If you are down south this weekend, you could do worse than calling in to see this game, which could feature two players in great goalkicking form – Mansfield’s Billy Hogan and Seymour’s Riley Mason. Between them, they kicked 18 goals last weekend, with Hogan bagging a season-high 12 and Mason kicking half a dozen. Mason won the league goalkicking last year and has this year appeared on only two occasions in Lions colours. He has kicked 21 goals in 12 games with Collingwood’s VFL team and in the Lions’ upset win against Shepparton Swans took 8 marks Inside 50 for a 6.3 return. Hogan has kicked 30 of his 38 goals for the season in the last four weeks, his 12.2 return on Saturday coming after bags of seven and eight in the last two games. Before Round 10 he had been kept goalless on six occasions. This match looms as an eight-pointer for the Lions, as they could well finish with a rush and challenge both the Swans and Bears for a spot in the final six. They are two wins behind both these teams but have games against Tatura, Euroa, United and the Bears to come. Prediction: Mansfield by 19 points
LTTM: Round 3, 2025: Mansfield won by 44 points
Euroa v RochesteR
Rochester has lost just two games this season, but in three other games has finished with a single-figure winning margin. The Tigers’ most impressive win of the season came only two weeks before last weekend’s bye – a 34-point win against Echuca only a week after they had been humbled by Kyabram to the tune of 62 points. Including this weekend’s game against Euroa, the Tigers face three of the bottom five teams in the final home-and-away rounds – including winless Tatura in the pre-finals round. They should finish second as they also face an out-of-sorts Shepp Swans who have dropped to 6th on the ladder after losing all but one of their last six games. One of the great duels of the GVL season will be between Lachlan Hill and Rochester’s Mitch Trewhella. Hill leads the competition for both loose ball and hard ball gets (Trewhella is 2nd for hard ball gets), while the Magpie star is also the top contested possession player (Trewhella is 4th), and he is 2nd for clearances (Trewhella is 7th). Trewhella is the top tackler in the competition (Hill is 4th) and is the top handballing player in the competition. Both teams prefer to use hands – the Tigers ranked 1st and Euroa 3rd. Prediction: Rochester by 29 points
LTTM: Round 13, 2025: Rochester won by 15 points
Benalla v Kyabram
After winning back-to-back games for the first time this season, the Saints suffered 119- and 84-point defeats leading into last weekend’s bye. Winless for the opening four rounds, the Saints beat Tatura by 65 points before being highly competitive in losses to Rochester (leading by 3 points at quarter time), Euroa (a four-point loss), and against finals aspirant Seymour. They then beat United by 19 points and Mooroopna by 22, on the back of 13 goals in two weeks by the league’s leading goalkicker Nathan Wright. This weekend, though, they face a Kyabram team which had 52 scoring shots against Tatura on the weekend and registered its fourth 100+ point win of the year. Against the Bombers in Round 3, the Saints kicked six of their eight goals for the game in the third quarter, but didn’t manage a score in the final term as the Bombers had 13 scoring shots. Luckily, they were inaccurate and kicked seven behinds. Kyabram’s scoring power is underlined by the fact it is more than 400 points better than the next best attack, while also boasting the second most effective defence (just behind Rochester and Shepparton Bears). Jack Russell continues to impress in his first GVL season, with the most goal assists in the competition. The Bombers also have six of the top eight score involvement players in 2025. Prediction: Kyabram by 125 points
LTTM: Round 3, 2025: Kyabram won by 105 points
Tatura v Echuca
Having had a wretched run of outs with injuries to star players, the Murray Bombers’ 3rd-placed status belies the challenges they have faced. This weekend will not be one of those challenges, with their only losses this year to Kyabram (by 35 points) and to Rochester (by 34 points). They have looked less than invincible (something which is foreign to the league since pre-COVID days) in games against Mansfield and the Swans, winning both by less than two goals. After this weekend’s game against the bottom-ranked Bulldogs, they face Benalla (10th) before two big games against a vastly improved Shepparton Bears (which has recovered from a five-week losing stretch to win their last four games) and a blockbuster against unbeaten Kyabram in Round 17. Tatura has been putting all its eggs in one basket in recent weeks, taking Curtis Ryan out of defence to play alongside ruckman Ryan Young and another regular defender, Michael Archer. Ryan had 35 disposals and 4 clearances, while Archer had 23 touches and 5 clearances. They will front up against the 3rd-best clearance player, Sam Reid, who is also top three for loose balls and hard ball gets. The Murray Bombers welcomed Kane Morris back last weekend and he will have an interesting duel with swingman Ben Darrou. Prediction: Echuca by 136 points
LTTM: Round 3, 2025: Echuca won by 161 points
