Tara Murray
The Suns finals hopes are in their own hands in the Western Football League division 2 competition.
Last season’s division 3 premiers sit in fifth spot after 14 rounds with the top six teams to play finals.
Suns coach Dean Cachia said it’s nice to know that they have some control over their fate with four rounds remaining.
“We’ve had some challenges this year,” he said. “It’s a really even competition in the middle.
“The top two are pretty far ahead of the rest of the competition.
“We want to play finals and our destiny is in our own hands. There’s four teams fighting for the last two spots.
“We’ll put the effort in at training and we have three games at home, anything can happen.”
Cachia said they’d had a lot of injuries this year with three to four changes every week which hadn’t helped with settling the side.
He said they had shown positive signs against the top sides, sides they’d never played before.
“Were competitive for the first quarter against Sunshine and we were in the game at three quarter time against Newport,” he said.
“We’re not too far off in certain parts of the game. Their experience shows where we need to be for future seasons..
“We’re under no illusions where we sit.”
On Saturday, the Suns snuck home for a win against Laverton.
There was nothing between the two teams all day, with the Suns winning 7.11 (53)-7.6 (48).
Cachia said it was the worst conditions he’s played in for three to four years. He said it was the side that adapted to the conditions better that got the win.
“Laverton has improved a lot this year,” he said. “It was a really tough day and we lost two of our three starting mids as late outs.
“It was really muddy and it made it slippery. Both teams had chances and we were able to kick a late goal.
“Had we lost it would have left us in a dangerous position.”
Cachia said they kicked the winning goal with three to four minutes left on the clock with neither team really looking like they would score another.
John Tomelty kicked three goals for the Suns and was the clear best on ground according to Cachia.
He said Chris Lear in the backline was good and then the next three best players on the ground were from Laverton.
The Suns this week host West Footscray on the club’s sponsors day.
Cachia said they were hoping to get a few players back from injury.
In other results, Tarneit upset Braybrook and Wyndhamvale beat West Footscray.
