By ADEM SARICAOGLU
HILLSIDE reminded its Essendon District Football League Division 2 rivals of just how difficult it will be for anyone to knock them off in 2013 after scoring a 50-point win over fellow contender East Keilor on Saturday.
In tricky conditions at East Keilor’s Overland Reserve, the Sharks overcame a sluggish first half to kick clear in the final term with six goals to the Cougars’ one.
While East Keilor coach David Battistella remains pleased with the progress his young team has made to get itself in the box seat to finish third, he admitted to his disappointment at the final term fadeout on Saturday.
“I think they got the first three centre clearances (of the final quarter) and kicked two goals in the first five minutes, and I suppose when you’re five goals down 10 minutes into a last quarter – and with a young group, it’s just whether you still have the belief you can win,” Battistella said.
“The last 15 minutes of the game were unfortunately probably a little bit irrelevant.
“I felt we just dropped away because we lost that belief that we could actually win the game once they got to those five (goals) up, so for them to kick 6.7 in the last quarter and we kicked 1.1 – it was a little disappointing how we finished the game.”
However Battistella was able to take some positives out of what was a competitive effort in the first half.
“We were a lot better than the last two times we’ve played them,” he said.
“We actually led at quarter time, which is the first time we’ve done that and we were within 14 points at three-quarter time and probably at half time maybe we should’ve been level – so we probably wasted some opportunities.”
Hillside coach Steve Kolyniuk, however, believes some of his players had their foot off the pedal in the first half.
“I thought we played OK,” Kolyniuk said.
“We just did what we had to do and to (East Keilor’s) credit they came to play and it probably took until the second half for some of our guys to wake up.
“They’d just been in automatic pilot – but it was pleasing to have a good hit out and it was a very competitive game.”
Hillside could knock Keilor Park out of the finals race at home in the final round this weekend while East Keilor will get a good pre-finals tune up against Moonee Valley.
