Cracker of a country footy final between Moe and Leongatha

YOU’D have to go a long way to see a better game of country football than the Second Semi-final between Moe and Leongatha at Morwell on Saturday.

Moe came out of the blocks like a shot out of a gun with James Harmes hitting Declan Keilty on the lead before finding Myles Poholke, coming across the pack to mark, and goaling inside a minute.

They couldn’t have scripted it better.

Harmes, Trent Baldi and Poholke were involved again moments later, getting the ball to Riley D’Arcy who had their next up within three minutes.

They’d dominated the opening of a much-anticipated finals clash, and Leongatha hadn’t got it past halfway. It looked ominous.

But finally, it was Dyson Heppell who drove the ball forward via a 50-metre penalty and after peppering the scoring zone for a while, Nick Argento was caught high and calmly went back and slotted the Parrots’ first.

From that point onwards it was a goal-for-goal thriller of the finest calibre, across three and a half quarters, leaving even the most hardened Gippsland and Latrobe Valley footy fans searching their memories for a better finals match.

Maybe the 1997 grand final when Rod Taylor kicked 10 goals, only to see his Morwell Tigers go down to Leongatha by four points, might be one.

But it was right up there with the very best.

Leadership in the game see-sawed throughout, with both Moe and Leongatha getting it out to a three-goal lead each at one stage but neither the Parrots nor the Lions were ever beaten.

The game had everything, high flying, fast running play, quality kicking for goal at both ends, and some ferocious collisions.

Late in the last quarter there was still nothing in it.

At the 25-and-a half-minute mark of the last quarter, Fraser Phillips took a contested mark for the Parrots and kicked a goal from 45 metres to put Leongatha back in front by two points.

As time ticked away, Leongatha defended the ball on the far-side wing until Aaron Heppell kicked forward out of the pack only to see it dribble over the boundary line.

The umpires paid their first deliberate out-of-bounds free kick for the day giving Moe the chance they hadn’t been able to generate themselves for several minutes, to drive the ball forward.

Down the line, Nick Prowse was awarded a free kick, also 50-50 at best, for a chopping of the arms going for a mark and they kept the ball close to the forward 50.

With little more than a couple of minutes to go, a busy Blake Mullane tried a speculative kick forward to where Myles Poholke trapped it in a nest of Parrot defenders and somehow screwed it through for a miraculous goal, his seventh for the day.

The big crowd in front of the Morwell Social Rooms went up with a Lions' roar and Moe was back in front, by four points, with only moments to go.

Leongatha redoubled their efforts with little more than a minute remaining and tried a couple of forward entries, each time turned away by Moe until Tim Sauvarin was awarded a 50-metre penalty, before finding Fraser Phillips on the lead.

He marked just inside 50 but kicked from 55 metres out, his shot on target as the final siren sounded only to fall agonisingly short of the goal line.

Moe had won a truly epic battle by four points to secure a berth in the Gippsland League grand final on Saturday, September 19 at the Traralgon Showgrounds and a shot at their first flag in 59 years.

Narrowly defeated on the day, Leongatha goes on to the preliminary final at Sale next Saturday, hoping to win their way back into another grand final, potentially setting up an equally memorable encounter with even more at stake.

Easily the best player on the ground was Myles Poholke who shifted himself forward, back or on to the ball as the need arose, finishing with a match-winning seven goals in a dominant display.

Outside of him, Moe had plenty of role players including Blake Mullane, Harry Pepper, Ben Crocker, Alex Dijkstra, Brock Smith, Jordan Shields Tom Blackshaw and Trent Baldi.

For Leongatha, Dyson Heppell initiated dozens of attacks and turnovers, getting plenty of support Jack Sheridan dominant in the ruck, Kim Drew and Tom Marriott also on the ball, Tim Sauvarin and Cade Maskell in defence and a lively presence up forward, Jenson Garnham, among a team of other Parrot contributors who put their bodies on the line in a memorable contest.

Final score: Moe 16.6.102 Leongatha 15.8.98.