Ben Warren booted five goals on Saturday as Werribee smashed Collingwood by 82 points in the VFL. 70639_12 Picture: DAMIAN VISENTINI
By LIAM TWOMEY
WERRIBEE ensured it will go into the first week of the Victorian Football League finals in hot form following the club’s 82-point win over Collingwood at Victoria Park on Saturday.
The Tigers didn’t have it all their own way early, with AFL listed Collingwood player Andrew Krakouer winning a lot of ball through the midfield and sending the Pies deep into attack.
However, the resistance was only fleeting as Werribee produced a near flawless second half to take the game away from Collingwood and rocket to the 20.16 (136) to 8.6 (54) win.
After calling into question the attitude of his playing group in their shock loss to the Northern Blues the week before, Werribee coach Scott West was impressed with the turnaround less than a week later.
“I thought it was all right early. We were probably just doing enough but I thought we still competed well,” West said.
“I think when you compete low enough and hard enough you end up breaking the opposition down and that’s what I think happened.
“Sometimes you just need to be ruthless. Not just with the opposition but with your team-mates. If you don’t think they are doing the right thing, if you think that they are in the wrong position and that is part of footy.
“That’s part of really good teams that they are ruthless on each other and sometimes I think we let our team-mate get away with something when we see it. I reckon we’ve changed that in the second half and I think we played a lot better.”
Ben Warren was a standout on the Tigers’ forward line, booting five goals while Malcolm Lynch and Ben Speight each finished the match with two.
The result means the Tigers finish the season in fourth spot on the ladder and will take on the Casey Scorpions in week one of the finals at Casey Fields on Sunday.
The Scorpions leapfrogged Port Melbourne who suffered a shock one point loss to North Ballarat in the final round of competition.
Despite the finals officially starting this weekend, West said Saturday’s match was like a final for his side.
“This was nearly a first final for us. We really wanted to win this game because then we knew where we were going to finish and not have to run inside and see what other results were. This was the first final so not only to win it but also the way we went about it, we are really looking forward to it.”
Werribee 20.16 (136) d Collingwood 8.6 (54)
Werribee Best: Greenwood, Warren, Lynch
Werribee Goals: Warren 5, Speight 3, Lynch 3
Collingwood Best: Paine, Krakouer, Witts,
Collingwood Goals: Paine 3, Corr 2, Ferraro 2
