27 August - Victorian Amateur Football Association

DIVISION 2Jonno NashDONE AND DUSTEDGlen Eira has done enough to capture the minorpremiership and a potential place in the grandfinal. There’s no silverware for this award, justbragging rights leading into the finals. A shakymonth of football has not undone their seasondominance from a side that was undefeated for alarge portion of the season. Eltham Collegians hassnuck into the final four in the last couple of weekswhile La Trobe University’s fairytale climb from Div3 will have to wait until next season. St John’s andTherry Penola are content to take out second andthird place respectively.Old Westbourne, after only winning one game forthe year, is in the relegation pit along with Aquinas,who has had to deal with some close defeats.Both sides will have to prove their wares in Div 3.Like most relegated sides, the most challengingprospect is retaining your talented key players,who may be persuaded to play football at a higherlevel else where. Let’s hope this isn’t the case forthese two teams.Eltham struck the first blow defeating TherryPenola away from home by 14 points. The Lionspulled away early before Eltham pushed themargin to their favour and held it for the remainderof the match. It was a pre-eminent finals previewwith fourth toppling third in a match where theforwards were prolific. Eltham’s Sabastian Ciavolabooted five in a strong forward display as Therry’sJake George snagged four. Michael Costello wasa solid contributor as too was Mark Farold, whokicked two goals. Sam Richardson was Collegiansbarometer. Put simply, when he had the ball greatthings happened. Who knows if the result will fallthe same way when these sides meet this week?Aquinas had to win to claw themselves out ofthe bottom two. Unfortunately, their fate restedon beating La Trobe University. La Trobe pushedaway in each of the quarters despite a spiritedreturn from Aquinas in the third quarter. However,any resurgence was quashed in the last with Unibooting six-goals to one to march away 63-pointvictors. Stuart Patten, in a masterful best on groundperformance, finished the match with eight goalsto his name. He’s performance ultimately provedto be the difference. Aquinas lacked forwardpower with no multiple goalkickers as LiamToohey (two goals) and David Harry had much oftheir opponents for the day.Glen Eira kept St Mary’s Salesian goalless inthe opening stanza to build a 64-point lead bythe final siren. Glen Eira continued to win eachquarter through the heroics of Justin King andBen O’Donnell. Glenn Boyd and King collectivelycontributed nearly half of their side’s score withnine goals. St Mary’s Cam Rose did all he could asJos Op’T Hoog was his team’s leading goalkickerwith three. With Glen Eira having 14 more scoringshots, the result could have been greater.St Johns nullified a determined Emmaus St Leosby 44-points. St Johns’ winning margin lookedset to explode in the third quarter until Emmauskicked six –goals to five in the last. Nicholas Poukihad four to his name as Leos Nic Robin was themajor goal scorer with three in a strong halfforward/midfieldrole. Darryn O’Connor playedhis best game to date in a best afield performancethat gave forwards Doug Carmichael and DarrynDick three goals each. The match was a tastefulintroduction to finals football for St Johns who aimto swipe at ladder leader Glen Eira.TODAYSelections in BOLDSEMI FINAL 2GLEN EIRA v ST JOHNSSEMI FINAL 1THERRY PENOLA v ELTHAM COLLEGIANS10 THE AMATEUR FOOTBALLER 2011SPORTS INJURY CASUALTY - 316 Malvern Road, Prahran