By Justin Flynn
If Inverleigh wins this weekend’s Geelong & District Football League grand final, it will end a premiership drought that stretches back to 1992.
The Hawks went straight through to the decider with a nine-point win against their opponents tomorrow, Thomson.
Coach Chris Moore said breaking the 31-year drought would mean a lot to the town and club.
“It’s been a long time,” he said.
“This is only my third year, but talking to people around the club, it would be a huge boost and I think the club deserves a win.”
Moore said the second semi-final result could have gone either way and that Thomson had proven to be a formidable opponent.
“It was a tough, hard game,” he said.
“It could have gone either way. We just sort of got rolling in that last quarter. So I don’t think there’s much between both sides.”
Moore said the playing group was looking forward to the challenge.
“We’re playing against the benchmark side all year in Thompson, so we’ve got to have some confidence, but we’ve also got to be mindful that we’re up against a pretty good team,” he said.
“I think that we don’t have a reliance on one player. I think that we’re probably the most even team in the competition. We think our depth is really good and also we’re not relying on one person to kick goals. We think we’ve got a pretty good spread.
“I think their (Thomson’s) forward line is very star-studded. They’ve got some big weapons up forward. That’s probably one thing that we’re going to have to control.”
Thomson ended the home and away season on top of the ladder, losing three games. You only need to go back five years for the Tigers’ last premiership.
Coach Paul Lynch said the second semi-final loss to Inverleigh was “end to end stuff”.
“It could have gone either way, it’s just that Inverleigh were in the front at the end of the day, but it was a fantastic game of footy and a lot of people said the same thing,” he said.
“So I expect much the same this week. I think there’s not a lot between the two sides and it’ll be just whoever plays better on the day.”
Lynch said both sides were similar to each other.
“We just match up very similar all over the ground,” he said.
“I said to the boys when we played the first time, it’s like looking in the mirror a little bit. They’re very similar to us the way they play. I think we stack up pretty well all over the ground.
“We’ve got pretty good defenders that seem to hold up pretty well and I think our forward line is pretty dangerous, too. I think we’ve got five or six forwards that are all capable of hitting the scoreboard.
“We’re strong at both ends of the ground and then I think we break pretty even in the middle, so I don’t think there’s a lot of difference between our midfields.
“I think their forward line is very strong and I think our forward line is very strong. So it’ll be just a matter of what defenders can get it done on the day.”
Both sides will be playing their third final. Inverleigh had a week’s break this week, while Thomson had the break during the opening week of the finals.
“We understand having played two big finals, it can take its toll, but we think we’ll be right to go and fresh and ready,” Lynch said.
The game is at 2.15pm at St Albans Reserve on Saturday September 16.
Inverleigh meets East Geelong in the reserves grand final starting at 11.45am while East Geelong takes on Werribee Centrals in the A Grade netball decider at 3pm.
