AN eight-goal final term wasn’t enough for Werribee to overcome
Collingwood in the final round of the Victorian Football League
home-and-away season on Saturday.
The Tigers went into the game in good touch, having beaten Port Melbourne and Northern Blues comfortably in the fortnight prior.
But after a low-scoring first half, the Magpies came out and
delighted the home crowd at Victoria Park with eight third-quarter
goals.
Ben Warren got the first goal of the quarter and Ben McKinley and
Robbie Castello kept the Tigers in touch, but Collingwood was simply too
good and took a 38-point lead into the last break. But teams have found
it tough to keep Werribee down this season, and this game was no
different.
Jarred Moore got the first of eight Tiger goals in the last term
from a snap. And when Ben Warren, Ben Brown and Kieran Harper followed,
the Pies’ lead had shrunk to 14 points. Back-to-back Collingwood goals
then seemed to put the game beyond doubt.
But Moore goaled again, joined by Jordan Gysberts and Keenan
O’Shea, playing his first senior game. The margin was seven points, but
that was as close as the Tigers would get.
In the middle, Moore played perhaps his best game for the club
with 37 disposals, and Daniel Currie was excellent rucking against the
far more experienced combination of Ben Hudson and Darren Jolley.
The likes of Scott Clouston and Will Sullivan did a good job down back. Up forward, Ben Brown impressed again with three goals.
The result means Werribee is scheduled to play Essendon in the
first elimination final at North Port Oval this Sunday, though as the Weekly went to print it was unclear whether any sanctions received by Essendon for the supplements case would affect its VFL side.
Tigers’ coach Scott West said lapses in the third quarter cost his team.
“There was a bit of a blue at half-time and I thought we needed to
come out and make a statement. They did and we didn’t,” he said. “We
wanted to win, we didn’t but we finished off the game really well so
hopefully we can take that momentum into next week.
“Apart from the third quarter, I thought we were really competitive.”
