Williamstown thundered into the Victorian Football League
preliminary finals at North Port Oval on Saturday, belting old foe Port
Melbourne 27.14 (176) to 14.5 (89).
The Seagulls will meet raging flag favourite Geelong this Saturday for a spot in the grand final.
Though Williamstown was the higher-ranked of the two teams heading
into the semi-final, plenty of punters gave Port Melbourne a chance.
PICTURE GALLERY: Williamstown v Port Melbourne
The Borough beat Williamstown comfortably on two occasions this
year, and held the Seagulls to two goals at the same venue in round 14.
But Williamstown controlled the contest from the outset, booting the first five goals of the game before Port got its first.
By half-time the Seagulls led by an astonishing 50 points, and killed off the contest in the third quarter by kicking 12 goals to four.
The Borough had slightly the better of the final term with eight
goals to six, preventing a triple-figure loss, but there was no stopping
the complete and utter dominance of the yellow and blue.
There were 14 individual goalkickers for Williamstown, led by Jason Tutt’s five and Patrick Veszpremi’s four.
Jack Johnstone was best-on-ground for the Seagulls, restricting
the dangerous Chris Cain and racking up 23 disposals. He has played the
past month with the seniors after 15 development league games.
Football manager Chris Dixon had plenty of praise on a happy day
for Williamstown, with the reserves recording a 96-point win over Port
Melbourne to march into their grand final.
“There was a fair bit of disappointment in our loss to Box Hill and the players really wanted to rebound from that,” he said.
“We knew it was an elimination game for us and we had nothing to lose … the players just came out really hard.”
Dixon said his side would take the same sort of approach into the Geelong game.
“I don’t think too many will give us a chance, to be honest.
“But again we’ve got nothing to lose and hopefully we can attack the game the same way we did against Port Melbourne.”
