Jason Cloke flies above three Altona players to take a mark. 70279 Picture: KRISTIAN SCOTT
BY MICHAEL ESPOSITO
SHEER relief. That was the overriding emotion for Spotswood when the final siren of the WRFL preliminary final sounded on Saturday.
Altona improved by 95 points on the last time these teams met in the qualifying final two weeks ago, but fell two points short of advancing to the grand final.
Instead, we will see a re-match of last year’s epic grand final between Spotswood and Albion.
It’s the match-up most pundits expected, but very few would have predicted Altona to push Spotswood to the absolute limit.
In the end, a 50-metre penalty awarded to Cameron Sharp who kicked a point in the 23rd minute mark of the last term, was the difference.
Any pride Altona lost after its qualifying final shellacking was restored and then some on Saturday. The Vikings’ fierce intent and will to win could not have been questioned.
But Spotswood, showing why it’s a champion team, did just enough to advance to its fifth grand final in a row.
The intensity of both teams was on full display when Altona’s Matt Cross sidelined Torin Baker for the rest of the game with a heavy bump on the half-time siren, which resulted in a melee.
Cross was sin-binned for the first 15 minutes of the third quarter.
Woodsmen coach Chris O’Keefe was not too interested in dissecting the game afterwards. His thoughts were already on the grand final.
“We knew that they were going to come put pretty hard, and have a real crack at us and they did that, and all credit to them. It’s the best I’ve seen them play in four years,” he said.
“I said to my boys after the game, it doesn’t matter how much you win by as long as you win.
“The conditions made for a nice, tight spectacle and we over-used the footy a bit early in the game, and sometimes you just need to get it on the boot and get some momentum going your way. So we didn’t really handle them that well to begin with but in the end it was just a slogfest and a do-or-die.”
Jason Cloke kicked five goals in a game where goals were at a premium in the wet conditions.
“He was probably starved of opportunity a bit, so he did pretty well for the amount of time it was down there and it shows what an asset he really is to the team,” O’Keefe said.
“Tom Langlands was absolutely huge. Him and Jai Audley and Chase Morgan, they’re kind of guys who will put their body on the line week after week and minute after minute. They were absolutely fantastic and got us over the line.”
Goals scoring opportunities in the last quarter were especially scarce. The challenges both teams faced in penetrating their opposition’s defence resembled that of a soccer game. Only one goal apiece was kicked in the last term, plus Sharp’s match-winning point.
