Westbourne Grammarians breathed life into their Victorian Amateur Football Association division 4 campaign with a 30-point win over Manningham Cobras at Westbourne Grammar School on Saturday.
The Warriors’ season was at the crossroads at the 10-minute mark of the last quarter and they left nothing in reserve, knowing a loss would drop them out of the finals chase.
PICTURE GALLERY: Westbourne Grammarians v Manningham
A five-goals-to-one last quarter sealed the Warriors’ fourth win of the season and moves them to within two games of the top four.
“We need their spot so it was an eight-point game,” Warriors assistant coach Darren Saunders said.
“It keeps us within two games of them and we’ve got a pretty good run home. We need to make every post a winner now.”
The game was evenly poised until midway through the final term. That’s when best-on-ground Adam Imber and fellow onballer Tim Rogers went to work for the Warriors, winning the hard ball and giving their running brigade enough possession to do some damage.
With two wins over the Cobras this season, the Warriors know their best is good enough, but they must start producing it on a more consistent basis. “We know we’ve got a long way to go, but today’s form and the last couple of weeks we’ve shown we can play because we’ve played three top teams and pushed them all at certain times,” Saunders said.
Point Cook came to a standstill in the last quarter of a 36-point loss to Box Hill North at Elgar Park. The Bulldogs trailed by six points at three-quarter-time, but conceded six goals to one in the final term as their woeful inaccuracy from earlier in the day came back to bite them.
