Wimmera-Mail Times| A FINALS berth for Jeparit-Rainbow in its first Horsham District Fooball Netball League season looks increasingly likely after the Storm defeated Taylors Lake on Saturday.
In a match that pitted the fourth-placed Lakers against the fifth-placed Storm, there was plenty to play for.
The home side made the most of heavy conditions underfoot at Jeparit to slow the normally fleet-footed Lakers early in the game.
The Storm forced plenty of stoppages where big-bodied on-baller Brodie Grant excelled.
Peter Weir was also good, spending time forward and on the ball with Grant and Elliott Bath.
Lucas Edelsten had an important tagging role on Taylors Lake co-coach Deek Roberts.
Edelsten managed to limit Roberts’ influence early in the game while gathering plenty of the ball and kicking a goal himself.
The game was hard-fought and physical, with casualties on both sides.
Roberts needed stitches after splitting the skin near his eye and Jeparit-Rainbow’s Adam Schulz was taken to hospital for scans on his shoulder.
With its run limited, Taylors Lake struggled to create scoring opportunities.
The Lakers average more than 100 points a game this season, but were restricted to just five goals in the first three quarters.
The game opened up slightly in the last quarter and the Lakers mounted a comeback, with Roberts finding more of the ball and fellow co-coach Pat Purcell also damaging in the midfield.
Zac Anderson did his chances of cementing a spot in the senior side no harm with three final-quarter goals, but the Lakers left their run too late.
The final score was 11.13 (79) to 10.8 (68).
Jeparit-Rainbow co-coach Mark Cocks said his team relaxed too early in the last quarter but always had the game in hand.
He said the Storm’s hard work in close had prevented the Lakers from running away with the match.
“Our contested ball was really good,” he said.
“We fought hard to win the 50-50 contests and we moved the ball forward really well.
“That is probably the closest we’ve been to playing four full quarters of footy, and our confidence around each other is really growing.”
Roberts said the Lakers struggled to play the game on their terms.
“We slowly tried to get our running game going, but it was fairly congested,” he said.
“In the last quarter we broke it apart a little bit, but not as much as we would have liked.”
Taylors Lake has now lost three games in a row, but kept fourth place because of its percentage.
Roberts said the Lakers needed to regain their best form with finals approaching.
“If we don’t start winning, we don’t make finals – it’s pretty simple,” he said.
