Anglesea piled on six goals to none to overhaul a 10-point three-quarter time deficit against Drysdale in the Bellarine Football League qualifying final on Saturday August 17.
The win means the Roos advanced to the second semi-final against Torquay this Saturday with the winner earning a direct path to the grand final.
Drysdale led by two goals at quarter time, by four at half-time and by 10 points at the final break, but Anglesea refused to surrender.
Dylan Pettingill booted five goals, including three in the final term and coach Jordan Keras said the key forward added several attributes to his team after an injury plagued season.
“He’s a quality player and really hard to match up on,” he said.
“He’s really good in the air and on the ground and that makes it hard for teams to try and stop. They try and put a lock-down defender on him, but he’s too quick for most of them and they try to put a player who is good in the air and he’s also good in the air.”
Keras said the message at the final break was to run hard.
“Drysdale are a contested type of team and they rely on the stoppage game,” he said.
“We knew if we let them play that game all game then we’d struggle to get on top of them. We thought if we could get them on the spread through our fitness and our speed that we could come over the top of them. We had some fresh legs in the last and our boys worked really hard.”
Anglesea was far from full strength.
Harrison Veale is in Canada helping to fight the wildfires in British Columbia while key defender Max Simpson, Courtney Wedderburn and Sam Leeds were unavailable.
All could be available this weekend although Jack Rice will miss with a hamstring injury.
While Torquay has lost just one game this season, Keras wasn’t buying into the fact that this weekend is a free hit. He wants to win.
“Right now all we are thinking about is how good it would be playing in a granny (grand final) and locking it in,” he said.
“We’re going there this weekend like it’s an elimination final because we want to be giving ourselves every chance of playing in a granny and we’re four quarters away from it.
“They’ve beaten us twice this year by under two goals, I think both games we haven’t had anywhere near a full side and I think they’ve been pretty healthy.
“Our formline stacks up pretty well so I think it’s going to be a pretty even game.”
Keras himself is in blistering form in the midfield after a quiet three games by his own admission not that long ago.
“I wanted to make sure I got back to playing at the level that the club and my teammates expect me to play and that’s to be playing above the level,” he said.
“I think I’ve managed to do that in the last month and I think our coaching staff have done a really good job as well.”
MODEWARRE ended Geelong Amateur’s season with a 33-point win in the elimination final.
Connor Joseph booted six goals and veteran Josh Finch keeps taking his game to another level.
The Warriors will meet Drysdale on Sunday at Portarlington in the first semi-final while Anglesea will clash with Ammos on Saturday at Portarlington in the grand final decider. Both games begin at 2pm.
