Harper Sercombe
The Suns incredible season keeps rolling with their spot in the Western Region Football League division 3 grand final booked in.
The Suns defeated the second placed Albanvale on Saturday at Hansen Reserve in a semi final
After beating the Cobras by 91 points in the penultimate round of the season, the Cobras seemed on early and ready to prove they were a better side than what they showed only three weeks ago.
At half time only a straight kick separated the sides.
The second half began with drama, as a Suns player was yellow carded for an incident late in the second quarter that caught the attention of one of the goal umpires, meaning the Suns were down to 17 men for 15 minutes of the third term.
The Cobras were unable to exploit their extra man on the field, only adding one more goal than the Suns. When the player was able to be reintroduced to the match, the Suns began to assert some dominance, growing their lead to 28 points at three quarter time.
In the last term the Cobras couldn’t finish their hard work, missing five shots on goal, with the Suns continuing on their winning ways, being 15.8 (98)-9.13 (67) victors.
While a spot in the grand final will be a massive achievement for most clubs, for the Suns and coach Dean Cachia said anything short of a premiership would be a failure, following last season’s heartbreak.
“We were in this situation last year, got through to the grand final and fell short so it’s not big celebration or anything for us,” he said.
“We just got the job done yesterday, it was a hard game, they threw everything at us and there were some challenges but we got through them.
“Now we have the week off which we think is a real advantage but we need to put that to good use.”
Gun forward duo Daniel Hovey and Cachia did what they do best, kicking 10 goals between them. Hovey had seven in a best on ground performance.
“It’s hard for any of the teams in this competition to match his (Hovey) size and his ability to run and jump at the football,” Cachia said.
“Obviously it’s about how the ball comes in, but you’ve just got to get it to him and he’ll do the work.
“He’s a massive advantage for us, to have someone of his size and ability down forward, it gets us out of trouble a lot.”
You would be excused to have a couple of goals kicked on you after being down a man for 15 minutes at a pivotal stage of the game, yet the Suns fought and didn’t allow the Cobras to get themselves into the contest.
“The boys really just dug deep and we turned the game when we had 17 on the field,” Cachia said.
“I think it was more of a mental win… we were able to take another four goals after that point.
“Being up by five goals at the start of the last quarter we were able to change the things that we were doing, play a bit more defensively, which is what we did in the last quarter.”
The Suns will face the winner of Albanvale and West Footscray in the grand final.
