The celebrations for a player’s 100th goal of the season are one of football’s best idiosyncrasies.
At the halfway mark of the 2025 season, which gun goal-kickers from the region are on track to break the ton and reach football legend status?
When scanning the eyes across the four leagues — that The News covers — statistics, it appears there are four attacking behemoths who act as the lodestars for their respective forward lines.
Last season, the wily Kyle Mueller memorably reached the 100-goal mark for Congupna during the Murray Football League grand final.
Meanwhile, it’s safe to say Murchison-Toolamba’s James Lloyd raised the bat and then some in 2024 as he booted 137 goals in Kyabram District League.
Lloyd’s attacking prowess has continued in 2025, albeit at a slower pace.
The hulking Grasshopper currently leads the KDL for goals with 48 from eight matches.
With eight more games left in Murchison-Toolamba’s fixture, plus a likely deep finals run, Lloyd is on track to crack the 100-goal barrier again.
Up along the banks of the Broken Creek, a Purple haze hangs over Nathalia’s forward 50 as mercurial goal-kicker Liam Evans prowls.
Evans has booted 54 goals from nine games, including two bags of 10.
After kicking 67 goals last season, Evans has nine more home and away rounds, plus potentially finals, to reach 100 goals for the first time in his career.
The star Purple came close in 2023 when he kicked 94 goals for Nathalia in 17 matches.
A tick more than 70km east, an intriguing story is brewing at Picola District Football League club Tungamah.
The Bears have been on a resurgent run following a slow start to the year and the catalyst is a born-again forward named Ned McKeown.
Recruited from Swan Hill as a trusty defender, Tungamah coach Sean Johns said the Bears swung McKeown forward early in the season due to injuries.
It’s moments like these where the expression, “Every cloud has a silver lining”, rings truest.
Since his move from stingy defender to star-of-the-show forward, McKeown has booted 59 goals.
A three-week run included hauls of 14, 11 and nine and boosted him to the top of the league’s goal tally where he now sits comfortably 16 clear of Waaia’s Connor Brown.
Not to be forgotten is a rising star at Berrigan who is dominating the under-14 competition.
The Saints’ Jordan Swann leads the region for junior and senior football in terms of goals kicked.
After booting a heartbreakingly close 99 goals in 2024, Swann is back with an unquenchable thirst this year and has kicked 65 from nine games.
Two of the region’s clubs are leading the way for Victoria this year, with Murchison-Toolamba and Congupna owning the top two biggest current consecutive win streaks.
Country Footy Scores reported last weekend that the previous longest consecutive win streak — 43 straight games held by Harrow-Balmoral in the Horsham and District League — had been broken.
It meant the Grasshoppers now have the longest win streak in country Victoria with 24 straight victories and 26 consecutive undefeated games.
The Roaders follow closely with 23 straight wins.
