Tara Murray
A confident Werribee is hoping to continue its winning streak in Saturday’s Victorian Football League preliminary final, but faces one of the rare teams to beat them this season.
While Werribee had the weekend off, the Brisbane Lions won through to the preliminary final with a strong win against Williamstown on Saturday.
Werribee enters the preliminary final on a game winning streak, with its last loss back in round four.
The side’s only other loss came back in round one, at the hands of the Lions.
On that day, Werribee led by two goals heading into the final break, before the Lions snuck home to win, 10.10 (70)-10.9 (69).
Barlow said they were looking forward to the challenge against the Lions.
“We are starting to have a look at the team,” he said. “They look fairly similar to round one, they’ve been fairly consistent throughout the year.
“They’ll have 16-17 AFL-listed players with a fair bit to play for with AFL spots and a VFL grand final on the line.”
While the two teams played back in round one and a lot has changed, Barlow said they took a lot out of that game and would look to learn more this week.
He said they know that they had their chances to get the win on that occasion, but weren’t able to get over the line.
“We’ve gone through game scenarios and being under pressure and what we can do better,” he said.
“We reviewed that game, the last few minutes we had a lot of opportunity to win the game and didn’t execute.
“It was a bit of an environment thing, semi professional vs professional athletes and sometimes you have to learn in cut throat games, and to the guys credit they learned a lot.”
Barlow said he was expecting a similar midfield dynamic from the Lions on Saturday and some similar tactics.
Having faced Box Hill for the first time in the qualifying final, Barlow said it was nice to be able to play a side they’ve played before to help with preparation.
Barlow said having the week off had been good for the players and the coaching group ahead of a big week this week.
He said it gave them the chance to look at things more in depth without the rush to get things done in a week.
“We did not have too many in local finals,” he said. “I think we had two players on the list that are still in the local finals.
“We managed our time last week and went a bit slower at the start of the week. We trained strongly on Thursday and again on the weekend.
“This week we’ll start to pull back a bit and freshen up physically.”
Barlow said like they did last week they would look to use this week for some learning opportunities to make sure they are ready come Saturday.
The preliminary final will be a new experience for most of the group. Only Michael Sodomaco has played in a preliminary final for Werribee, back in 2013.
Barlow, who played in a preliminary final for the club himself, said the season has been full of new experiences and this is just another one.
“We’ve lived so many experiences throughout the whole season,” he said. “It’s another learning opportunity.
“The guys have really come together the last few years. We have the added advantage that we bat down to player 23.
“They have the star power, but I don’t know whether they bat all the way down to number 23 as well as us.”
With the match at Avalon Airport Oval on Saturday at 12pm, Barlow said he was hoping to see a big crowd to support the club.
“It will be a nice day,” he said. “We want to get as many people to get on board as we can and get a good buzz around the team, which helps the guys morale.”
