After a wait of almost three years, four teams are eagerly awaiting finals action which returns this week in Heidelberg Golf Club Division 3 football.
The final round of the regular season saw teams out of the top four race play finals bound opponents. Three of the four results went according to ladder position.
Lalor played Laurimar at Laurimar Reserve and came away with the closest loss to the Power all season in going down by 138 points.
“I’m pleased with the way the guys applied themselves in the latter part of the year, we had a look at other players, and some did well,” said Lalor coach Angelo Lamanna.
Laurimar fans may have wished for a big bag of goals from Jacson Cecil to move him towards triple figures, but the weather wasn’t in his favour and opponent Luke Baker did well to restrict him to four majors.
Cecil topped the goal-kicking ladder with 84 majors in an impressive season.
Kaiden Arthur starred for the Power with a five-goal haul. Regular top performers Jake Richards and Luke Wilson performed admirably, while Grant Sampson had his best game for the season.
“Looking forward to this week, finals are here and we can’t wait,” said Laurimar coach Jimmy Atkins.
The Power would’ve grabbed top spot had Mernda beaten South Morang at Mill Park Lakes Reserve. The Demons looked a genuine chance to win for most of the day before the Lions pulled away late to win by 29 points.
“As usual, it was a hard contest against Mernda, but a good lead-in to the finals,” said South Morang coach Gary Hall.
Nathan Stefanile was clearly best on ground while Ben Power also stood out and managed to hit the scoreboard for the first time since the mid-season break.
Demons fans walked away with hope for the 2023 season after testing the league leaders.
“It was a great contest,” said Mernda assistant coach Ronnie Russell.
“We pushed them until the last ten minutes of the game, but their experience and a little bit of class got them over the line.”
Russell liked the work of Ryan Bongetti who slotted five goals, while Anthony Bradford and Riley Black also stood tall.
Reservoir headed north to play Kilmore at J.J. Clancy Reserve. The game was called off due to inclement weather in the third term with the 120-12 score at the time being deemed the final result.
“Looking forward to getting back into finals action and hopefully we can do better than in 2019,” said Kilmore coach Nathan Phillips.
Phillips was pleased with the tireless ruck work of James Atkinson and the hard two-way running of Leigh Irons.
“What I am most pleased about is that we have turned the club around,” said Reservoir coach Justin George.
“We have signed every player that played senior footy this year for the 2023 season.”
Daniel Cole was named best for Reservoir. Dylan Moulton was promoted from the reserves the previous week and immediately justified the faith shown in him by playing to a high level and finishing his work off with a goal.
Old Eltham Collegians and Heidelberg West locked horns at Eltham College with the Hawks being the only team for the weekend to defeat a higher ranked opponent. After an even first half, Heidelberg West gradually got on top to win by 15-points in wet conditions.
Alex Hywood booted five majors to claim second spot on the goal-kicking table with 57 majors. The win by the Hawks suggests that they are ready to press for a finals berth in 2023. Although the Turtles lost, they look likely to field a stronger team for the first week of the finals.
Two enticing games await fans this weekend at the Whittlesea Showgrounds. South Morang and Laurimar will clash in the second semi-final on Saturday with the winner to take the short cut to the grand final.
At the start of the season, many pundits would’ve expected these teams to claim the coveted double chance. They played off in the 2019 preliminary final with the Lions prevailing by 10 points and after no games were played in 2020, the Power were the only team to defeat South Morang in the incomplete 2021 season which ended with the Lions on top and Laurimar in second.
Fast forward to the end of the 2022 and these two again head the list of teams pressing for the Division 3 flag. In the middle part of the season, Laurimar had surged to the top of the ladder with seven straight wins from rounds 5 to 11.
The Lions lost to each of the other three finalists from Round’s 5 to 7 but have now won the past 11 games in a row. With wins at Mill Park Lakes Reserve over the Power in Round 14 by 23 points and again in Round 17 by 21 points, they go into this match as the team to beat.
But Jimmy Atkins’ men will give themselves a great chance to win on the back of their 19 point Round 6 triumph and the fact that they weren’t that far away in the two recent losses.
Nathan Andrews and Matthew Gersh were withdrawals against Lalor last weekend, but would be welcome inclusions for Laurimar this weekend. Likewise, James Hewson is likely to return for the Lions. With a grand final berth at stake, a fiercely contested game in front of a big crowd is anticipated.
There are no second chances on Sunday when Kilmore take on Old Eltham Collegians in the first semi-final. The loser is out, while the winner progresses to the preliminary final the following week.
The Blues’ 2019 campaign saw them play finals for the first time in the NFNL and the first time in any competition since 2002. But they lost the first semi-final to eventual grand finalists South Morang when booting an errant 3.14 to the Lions score of 9.10. The experience of that finals game may be a help and about a dozen players from that day will front up again.
The Turtles are following a similar path to Kilmore three years earlier, having not played finals in the NFNL to date and with an eight-year gap to their last finals appearance in another league.
Expect multiple changes to last week’s line-ups with both teams resting players last week as the finals match-ups were already locked in.
The three meetings between the teams this season have resulted in a 10-point win by the Blues in Round 1 at Eltham College, an 8-point victory again to Kilmore in Round 9 at J.J. Clancy Reserve and then Old Eltham Collegians won by a solitary point at J.J. Clancy Reserve in Round 17.
Although margins were tight, there were notable momentum swings in these games. The winner may be the team that can cash in on its period of dominance and will hit the preliminary final with some confidence.
It shapes up as a great weekend to begin the senior men’s finals series.
