FOR Hoppers Crossing to make a splash in the Western Region Football League division 1 finals, it needs boom recruit and focal point Kade Carey fit and firing at the business end.
Carey has endured a winter of nagging soft-tissue injuries, curtailing the brilliance he has shown in patches.
On Saturday, in the Warriors grind-it-out 26-point win over Sunshine Kangaroos on the road at Kinder Smith Reserve, Carey threatened to rip the game apart.
Click on the image below for our gallery of the big game.
The imposing forward had four goals to quarter-time and was marking and leading strongly.
Then, in a few short steps, he felt a bit of pain in one of his quadricep muscles.
The Warriors were taking no chances with their star forward with a finals series looming.
Carey retreated to the bench, not to be seen for the rest of the game.
“It was a cautious thing,” Warriors captain Brad Murphy told the Weekly.
“He’s got a history with soft-tissue injuries and if your star player gets an injury, you’re going to rest him with finals in mind.”
No doubt, with two finalists involved, the hierarchies of the other five clubs in the finals were scouting the game.
The message that would have been relayed back to the coaches would have centred around Carey’s breathtaking opening term.
Given a clear run with injury, Carey has the potential to take this year’s WRFL finals by storm.
“I reckon he could’ve kicked 10 or 12 if he stayed out there,” Murphy said.
“He was absolutely on fire.”
If you could extract a positive out of your star player being sidelined, it is that the Warriors have developed a number of other avenues to goal in his absence.
When Carey went off, the extremely versatile Luke Wilson filled in the gap, booting six goals in a typically high-octane display.
“Luke brings a lot of energy to the team,” Murphy said.
“He’s one of our older guys but he’s like a 15-year-old kid.
“He’s as tough as they come, too.
“He had hand surgery five weeks ago, got the pins removed on Thursday and was back playing two days later.”
Thomas Jehle has received his share of plaudits for being another go-to option on the Warriors forward line.
The youngster has shown that he can play deep and sniff out a goal.
Asked to play a more foreign high half-forward decoy against the Roos, Jehle took to the task selflessly to play an important role in the team structure.
“We identified that Sunshine likes to drop a man in the hole in front of the forwards,” Murphy said.
“We had him at centre half-forward to try and drag the bloke out of that hole and it worked, because he’s too good to leave alone.”
The Warriors had to fight every step of the way to come away with the points that keep them in the double-chance race.
They led by five at quarter-time, extended it to 30 by the mid-point of the game, but that was all but erased with a one-point advantage at three-quarter-time.
“For three-and-a-half quarters it was as tough and hard as any finals game,” Murphy said.
“It was close until the last 15 minutes and then we blew them away.”
Carl Flahavin, Murphy Watt, Jason Giaini and Aaron Ramsay were prolific for the Warriors.
They will have to repeat their performances when the Warriors face defending premiers Spotswood in their last home game of the season on Saturday. Young gun Ashlin Brown, captain of TAC Cup club Western Jets, is set to make his senior debut for the Warriors.
