Once upon a time, in a little country town which had endured more than its fair share of troubles, there was a very little team of Cinderellas who were about to electrify their community.
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Rochester’s fledgling under-12 girls football team, in just its third season, has written its own fairytale, followed with increasing enthusiasm by families, friends and people the players had never met as they marched their way to an almost inevitable premiership flag.
If you have heard about, or are now reading about, the little town’s under-aged overachievers and haven’t got a little misty eyed, you must have a very cold soul.
With the football and netball club the very heart of Rochy, the under-12s have been the only football team to bring home the bacon in 2026.
And they had to be world beaters to pull off their mini league miracle.
Bendigo-based St Francis Green, the team they defeated for the flag, was a junior juggernaut, having swept through the season 13-1, with Rochy two games adrift in second place.
The local girls had a season percentage of 305.56. But if you think that’s impressive (and it is), what about St Francis?
It recorded a staggering 2203.03 per cent.
That number is insane.
And it ensured the Bendigo side was an unbackable favourite for the flag.
Rochester’s coach Trent Riordan said the first time his charges met St Francis they lost 82-0. Next time around they cut that to 44-0.
But in their first finals game, our girls kicked butt and took it by 24 points.
Then it was the grand final and a nail-biting battle which went down to the wire, with Rochester running out a six-point winner, 4.2 (26) to 3.2 (20).
The final siren saw hundreds of supporters explode with cheers and tears, mobbing the triumphant tackers on the field.
For Riordan, still riding an emotional high, it was a stunning example of a triumph by democracy.
A triumph which started three years ago when an offhand comment stopped the club’s junior football club president Casey James in her tracks.
“We had plenty of girls participating in Auskick and when we had the last session of that year, Casey heard one girl say ‘well, I guess that’s the end of footy for me’,” Riordan said.
“And she thought ‘why should it be?’ and set about getting a local team into the Bendigo Junior Football League as that was the closest competition catering for girls this young.
“Tom Mangan had the team for the first year and I have coached the past two, with our daughter Ellie playing in the side.
“I played my first junior games at Locky, moving to Rochy for under-16s and then played all my footy here, which was a handful of senior games and a ton of reserves, but we did win the 1996 under-18 flag, our club’s only one in that division.”
In under-12s, teams are allowed 16 players only — 14 on the ground at any one time and two on the bench. But Rochy had 21 girls putting up their hands for a game.
One of those was injured and out for the season, leaving Riordan trying to squeeze 20 into 16.
Democracy was his solution. A spreadsheet was produced and every girl took turns sitting out, which he said meant most missed two or three games a year. Although even that was fluid, allowing for illness, holidays and other last-minute snags.
“But it worked beautifully, the girls embraced it and we never had a problem — everyone got a good run,” Riordan said.
“When we made the finals, our team manager Shelley Macfarlane came to me and said we need to sit down with the players and parents and plan where we go next,” he said.
“It was a really good call. We explained we intended to run the same system through the finals, even though there is always that pressure to pick what might be your best team on the day.
“One father even approached us and offered for his daughter to sit out all three finals, but we said no, everyone gets the same chance, and in the end that girl played two of the three games.
“In the finals, one girl kicked her first goal of the year, and another, who had kicked one goal in 14 games, kicked two. The girls knew when someone kicked their first goal and everyone got around them — this is a ripper bunch of kids.”
A democratic triumph pulled off by a passionate coach and a marvellous support crew.
The under-12 girls had repaid the support and delivered the town’s only football flag for 2026.
Riordan has no hesitation in explaining his coaching style.
“I’m just selling positivity — I want to wrap my arms around them all,” he said.
“I get an incredible kick walking down the street and having one of our players, past or present, stop me and say hello and be such confident and happy youngsters.
“In games our kids never talk back, they don’t respond when things get unnecessarily rough, and when they come off and mention it, I always tell them to look at the scoreboard.
“We pride ourselves on how we behave as much as how we perform. It’s not just about the footy, it’s how do we help make each player a better person?”
The other memories Riordan will hold dear forever, and he hopes all his players do as well, was how Rochester had adopted his team of tiny tots.
He said he could not believe hundreds of people made the trip to Bendigo for the Friday night final. He could not believe how they mobbed the ground after the win, singing the club song and celebrating with the girls.
“The support from the community has been sensational. The newsagent had the team photos in the window, the senior football and netball players did a shout out and we just got so many messages and good wishes,” Riordan said.
“All because a bunch of under-12 girls turned up every Tuesday for training and every Friday to play. We had home games and also went to South Bendigo, Ewing Park, White Hills and Catherine McAuley College.”
It has been a fairytale journey for coach and players, where Rochy’s Cinderellas turned into Tigers and became giant killers.