Border Mail |
LAVINGTON was buzzing after its stirring 12-point win over Yarrawonga on Saturday.
The electric atmosphere entering the players’ race after Lavington ended the second greatest winning streak in Ovens and Murray history jogged memories of premierships won at the league’s pre-eminent venue.
Fans, members, officials and past players all charged into the rooms awaiting a rousing rendition of the Panthers’ famed song.
Just one problem — the players weren’t there.
As the rooms filled up, Panthers’ coach James Saker quickly diverted his troops into the meeting room for no more than a minute.
Why?
“That was to just keep our heads on our shoulders,” Saker explained.
“It was a really good win and, naturally, everybody around the club is buzzing.
“But we did a lot of hard work to win this game and we need to remember that.”
It was a good win all right, season-shaping, perhaps.
Lavington quashed any thought this year’s flag race was yet again between two when it defeated the unbeaten reigning premier, which had won its past 28 games, by two goals on Saturday.
And it wasn’t an aberration.
It wasn’t as if the Pigeons were awful.
They led at every change, except the one that counted.
Yes, they had plenty of chances to put the game out of the Panthers’ reach, but they spurned most of them.
And Lavington made them pay.
When Alex Jones was sent from the ground after an uncharacteristic full blown swipe at Kayne Pettifer prior to half-time, Yarrawonga had a spare man for much of the third quarter.
But it was the Panthers who rallied, reeling in their 17-point half-time deficit before Pigeon Jarrod Thompson was controversially yellow-carded for tripping after an ankle-high tackle on Jay Banks.
All of a sudden, the match had been flipped on its head.
Lavington’s leaders, Kade Stevens, Luke Garland, Saker and Matt Pendergast, were fantastic all game and re-affirmed their status as elite players of the competition when the match was on the line.
Brant Dickson, Craig Mabon and Adam Flagg all excelled in their role, as only Lavington could ask.
The conditions were perfect, both teams cracked in, and the Panthers came out the better.
This was no fluke.
And it was that fact that left Saker suitably impressed after early season fade-outs against both Yarrawonga and Albury.
“It shows we’ve matured and that our style of footy is competitive against anyone, anytime,” Saker said.
“This win propels us for the rest of the year and gives us belief to take in a final that we can play our style of footy against a real quality team.
“We stuck to our guns and absorbed an immense amount of pressure and were able to dictate periods of the game.
“What we haven’t been able to do in these situations before is put scoreboard pressure on but we did that.
“It would have been easy to put the gun back in the holster but we kept being aggressive and trying to dictate.”
Pigeons’ co-coach Chris Kennedy has never been one for excuses, not that he’s often had to make them.
“Obviously we haven’t lost for a while but we’ll put it behind us, straight away,” Kennedy said.
“We know on our day that if a side catches us out, we’re going to be beaten.
“Nobody likes to lose, but the boys know they’ve got to play well to win.
“We could have put it to bed at half-time, but didn’t take our chances and full credit to Lavington — we were bound to have a loss, eventually.
