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BELL Park co-coach Ben Armstrong said a poor first half was the reason behind his side's disappointing 12-point loss to Grovedale in Saturday's qualifying final.
The Dragons had the tough task of kicking into the wind in the opening term at West Oval, a term in which they were kept goalless by Grovedale who kicked 5.5 to put Bell Park under early pressure.
That pressure increased in the second quarter with Bell Park taking until the 13th-minute to register its first goal, to then trail by 37 points at half-time.
"We made it too hard for ourselves with a poor first half," Armstrong said.
"First half of the first quarter was really poor and probably the first half of the second quarter as well. We just didn't perform in the first half.
"I just think our intensity was a bit low, our intensity around the contest was pretty low. And we were just a bit exposed in the first half.
"We put our backline under a lot of pressure and they (Grovedale) have some good players down there and they were able to cash in."
As you would expect from such a proud club, Bell Park lifted in the second half and at times looked like stealing the win from Grovedale.
All day Mitch Cuthill and Michael Bright (four goals) were the two main players leading the way for Bell Park and it seemed they saved their best efforts for the third quarter.
The Dragons cut the deficit back to just 14 points and for the first time had a real sniff of victory. But it was short-lived as Grovedale closed out the match with three quick goals and then went on to record the 12-point victory.
"We let ourselves down in the third quarter, Armstrong said.
We put ourselves in a position to win the game but to their credit they steadied at the end of the quarter and kicked three quick goals."
Tigers stake a claim - Nick Brown
GROVEDALE reconfirmed itself as a serious premiership contender after downing Bell Park by 12 points in Saturday's qualifying final at West Oval.
It had been 16 years since Grovedale had featured in a final series, but the Tigers looked at home getting the job done in front of their yellow and black army.
Grovedale coach Grant Tanner revealed the nerves had affected a number of players.
"It was the first finals experience for most of our players and we had some blokes who were still nervous at half-time, so it was good just to get that out of the way," Tanner said.
"We got really nervous there in that third quarter. The boys had done really well at half-time and then had a 10 or 15-minute period where we really butchered the footy, really badly.
"That allowed them (Bell Park) to get back into the game a little bit. We'll take experience out of the game and if we get in that position again we know we can push through it."
Grovedale went into the game without gun midfielder Jarrod Young, but worked hard to cover his absence. After the game Tanner was full of praise for his players but admitted the hard-fought contest would take its toll on them. "(Saturday's) game is going to take a fair whack out of the boys, it's a pretty draining sort of day, even our runner is just about shot," he said.
"We'll just have to recover as best as we can and make sure we are up and about. We've been competitive with them (South Barwon) so far so no reason why we cant do it again."
The Tigers battled wilfully in the final quarter as Bell Park stormed home to kick seven goals to four, ultimatley falling short by two goals.
Grovedale's win was dampened somewhat by an injury to former Geelong Falcon Adam Wood, who dislocated his knee.
But Tanner said he was still a chance to play in next week's second semi final against the Swans.
"He dislocated his knee, just popped it out and it went straight back in, so he is a chance to play next week," Tanner said.
"We just need to assess him later in the week."
Tanner will be hoping for another similar effort from star recruit Jordan Erskine, who booted seven goals for the Tigers.
