Harper Sercombe
Werribee Districts were able to go one better and claim its first Western Region Football League senior premiership.
It was a hot start at Chirnside Park on Sunday afternoon for the WRFL’s biggest day of the year as Werribee Districts faced Point Cook in the division 1 grand final.
Sitting at 24 degrees and no breeze to speak of, the underdogs Point Cook started the game with a bang, kicking the first goal of the game through Daniel Burton.
The Tigers replied half way through the first term, before the inaccurate Dogs added another of their own, taking an 11 point lead into the first break.
Throughout the first quarter the Dogs’ run, spread and contest game was on full show, moving the ball up the ground with ease.
Former AFL player Luke Dahlhaus was electric throughout the game and was a key contributor to the Dogs fantastic early ball movement. Dahlhaus created great run and poise with the ball in hand, hitting targets at will.
In the second term the Tigers began to take some of this away from the Dogs, getting some ascendency on the game without being able to capitalise on the scoreboard. However, the Tigers were able to get the lead back, with the margin being just two points at the break.
It was more of the same in the third term with the Tigers peppering their goals without actually scoring one until the 24th minute mark of the term. With the drought broken by leading goal scorer Trent Lee.
Scoring 1.4, to the Dogs one behind for the quarter, stretched their half time lead to 11 at three quarter time.
With a quarter of the WRFL season left to play, the thousands of supporters at the ground marched on to hear the both coaches’ addresses.
Just as quick as the ball was bounced for the start of the last term the Tigers had again hit the scoreboard, extending their lead to 17 points.
The Tigers looked to secure their first league premiership with back to back goals to Christopher Molivas, to give his side a 20 point lead.
Molivas was later awarded best on ground, for his liveliness up forward, booting 2.3.
The Dogs threw caution to the wind to try and eat away at the lead but failed to capitalise when it went inside 50.
Jack Fletcher sealed the win for the Tigers kicking a goal in the 27th minute to put this side up 29 points.
From there it was just a matter of waiting for the siren to sound with the Tigers claiming their first WRFL senior premiership, winning 9.11 (65)-5.13 (43).
After losing last year’s grand final it’s been a long time coming for the Tigers and skipper Daniel Schibeci. Schibeci missed last year’s grand final through injury.
“Plenty of years of work, that’s what it feels like,” Schibeci said. “We’ve had this group together for five, six years, added one or two (players) each year.
“I’m ecstatic, very, very happy.
“We’ve got a good group, we’ve got a few over 30s, a few mid-20s and then we’ve got some young kids who just take the game on and have dare.
“You need that, you need speed, because us old boys don’t have that anymore, so we needed the young fellas to come through and they’ve just gone on leaps and bounds this year.”
The Tigers only lost the one game throughout the entire season, beating the Dogs convincingly on more than one occasion, including in the semi final two weekends ago, however, they were much more competitive this time around.
“They obviously learnt a lot from that game and they brought the heat and pressure, bad kicking probably let them down,” Schibeci said.
“But our back six was unbelievable, they just held up and held fat, taking the air out of the game when they had to and defending like their life depended on it. You can’t fault them one bit.”
Goal kickers for the Tigers included Molivas, Lee and Fletcher had two each, with Josh Mould, Jack Fletcher, Tim Jenkins and Andrew Panayi all kicking one.
