SPOTSWOOD surged into a sixth consecutive Western Region Football League division 1 grand final with a runaway 48-point victory over a brave Hoppers Crossing in the preliminary final at Avalon Airport Oval on Saturday.
The Woodsmen have their sights set on a fifth flag in six years after overturning a 17-point deficit midway through the second term and booking a showdown with Altona in the season decider at Watton Street this Saturday.
Above all, what shone through was the professionalism of the Woodsmen, who went into the match without injured player-coach Chris O’Keefe and on the back of an energy-sapping loss to Altona seven days earlier.
No excuses were offered, with every player doing their bit to keep the incredible grand final streak alive.
“We didn’t have any passengers today,” O’Keefe said. “Everybody did their piece.”
The difference between the two sides was the vast experience the Woodsmen could draw upon from previous trips to the finals. They are masters of the domain and their level-headed approach when the scoreboard began to count against them was telling.
The Warriors are relative finals novices and produced an erratic performance that suggested as much.
They play an entertaining brand of football and had the lion’s share of the game’s highlight moments.
With them, you have to take the good with the bad.
At critical stages, the Warriors committed undisciplined acts and took their eyes off the ball, resulting in unnecessary turnovers.
“The discipline side of things, I’m big on that,” Warriors coach David Mitchell said. “It was very disappointing there at some stages.”
The Warriors, so slick and energetic for the first 45 minutes of the match, could not find a second wind.
They crumbled at the first sign of the Woodsmen taking control and could not recover.
“We still have our lapses and that’s the maturity of the group,” Mitchell said. “Spotty, to their credit and their experience, played out the four quarters and that’s why they won.”
Kade Carey put on a show to remember for the Warriors.
The freakish forward booted four goals — two of which were contenders for goal of the finals.
The first was an incredible snap across the body at the swimming pool end after he put in the initial hard yards in to win possession. The other was a three-on-one situation in which he was the one, nudged off the first defender and split the other two in half to retrieve the skidding ball and snap truly.
Jason Cloke was back to his best at the opposite end for the Woodsmen.
The former AFL player announced his arrival in this finals series when he courageously ran with the flight of the ball in the second term to pluck a big mark. Cloke finished with four goals and will provide plenty of headaches for Vikings coach Anthony Eames in the lead-up to this weekend’s grand final.
So, it leaves us with two. Spotswood, the powerhouse that has won four of the past five premierships, takes on Altona, the minor premiers who go in as slight favourites. Will the Woodsmen continue their remarkable run or can Altona add its name to the premiers honour roll for the first time?
Full coverage of the WRFL division 2 grand final, pages 62, 63.
