Tara Murray
Not for the first time in recent years, not much split the Suns and Albanvale in the Western Football League on Saturday.
This time the division 3 grand finalists from last season were playing off in a division 2 clash, with four points on the line.
Both sides had their chances to come away with the win but on this occasion it was the Suns that snuck home, 13.10 (88)-10.16 (76).
Suns coach Dean Cachia said he wasn’t surprised to see the two sides have another close one.
“It’s always close,” he said. “We’ve not executing how we want to be, we’re not playing our best football.
“We keep scrapping through and keeping our season on track. We’re training hard but we’ve had a few injuries early in the season so we’ve had different players in and out of the team.”
On Saturday, the Suns led by 13 points at quarter time before scores were level at half time.
The Suns managed to kick five goals to one in the third quarter to open up an 18 point lead heading into the final quarter.
The Cobras came hard in the last quarter but the Suns were able to hold on to win, 13.10 (88)-10.16 (76).
Cachia said he felt like there were a couple of differences late in the game for them.
“We lost to West Footscray by one point and some things went wrong,” he said. “We executed a lot better late in games.
“We won after the siren last week. We’re not panicking under pressure.
“Also they had a lot of opportunities that they missed. They would kick two or three behinds and we would kick forward and get a goal.
“It was the only difference between the sides.”
Cachia was the key forward on the ground kicking five goals in his side’s win.
He said Daniel O’Leary was clearly their best.
“He was one of our recruits,” he said. “He went off in the first game with a calf injury and this was his first game back.
“It was his first four quarter performance.”
The win moves the Suns to 3-2 and sixth on the ladder.
Cachia said now that they were getting some guys back from injury it was about getting games under their belts so they can build some consistency, which will hopefully result in more wins.
“We have the Western Rams this week and we’ll look for another big week on the track,” he said.
“The week after we have Braybrook which is a massive game and they are around us on the ladder.”
In other results, Wyndhamvale remains undefeated after beating the Western Rams, 24.16 (160)-3.5 (23).
Nathan Griffiths kicked six goals for the Falcons.
Tarneit’s tough season continued with a 19.18 (132)-4.4 (28) loss to North Footscray.
