Finals feels as Foster defeat Roos

By Rob Popplestone

AS IMPORTANT as this weekend’s round of MGFNL was, there remained the health of injured Thorpdale coach and star player Jason Winderlich was the first priority.

A neck injury suffered in round sixteen had the inspirational leader flown to Alfred hospital with surgery that night to his neck proceeding well.

One week later, Jason has indicated that the club and family will update when appropriate, as the prayers and well wishes from all clubs, players and supporters remain for his continued improvement.

On the field, two games in particular were crucial to the League’s top six, not so much who, but how it would eventually unfold.

The home team Tigers was well aware of what was on offer in their weekend clash with Fish Creek.

Foster, just a game behind the top of the table Kangaroos knew that a victory had them well placed to steal the number one spot at the last possible moment of the season, and therefore were ready to produce their very best against the reigning premiers, and their very best was good enough!

“Cracking day with a finals-like feel and a finals-like crowd,” Sam Davies, Foster coach stated. 

“Momentum swings all day, and we were good enough to absorb a lot of pressure and then find a way to get the job done when they came hard late in the contest. It was nice to see the smiles on all our supporters’ faces post-game.”

It was the perfect lead-up game for both games, for Foster they now can believe, or at least they should that they are capable of going all the way, whilst for Fish Creek the loss, albeit disappointing, is better now than in a few weeks come finals.

“A great game of footy yesterday, lived up to expectations of a finals-like intensity and feel,” Jarrod Walker, Fish Creek coach said. 

“Momentum swings all day but credit to Foster who was able to capitalise with goals when they got on top. A fair few positives for us to work with and a few things we can improve on as always.”

There is never the perfect game of football, but there is your best game, and you always want that to be when it is most required, and ideally that is in the last game of the year, but not always.

These two powerful clubs have in part lifted the benchmark in the MGFNL to about as good a standard as it’s been for a couple of decades, but there is also a handful more making ground quickly.