By Connor Schmidtke
Finals football in the Premier Division kicked off last weekend, with a pair of elimination finals narrowing the competition down to its last four teams.
The Sunday encounter saw a surprising upset victory, with Doncaster East knocking off Balwyn in a 63-point thumping.
Balwyn had entered the finals series as the higher positioned team, finishing in fourth on the ladder and two games clear of the fifth placed Lions. But none of the mattered last weekend as Doncaster East piled on 18 goals against the Tigers, setting up a semi-final clash with South Croydon this week.
Doncaster East found themselves in a tight tussle at half-time, leading by just one-point at the main break. But the Lions found another gear in the premiership quarter, slamming home seven majors to open up a 48-point lead heading into the final term.
The Lions head coach, Ryan James, said that his side were able to reset to their gameplan after the main break and executed much better in the second half.
“We thought we controlled the first half well.
“The last 15 minutes heading into the break we just lost a bit of patience with our ball movement, we just lost our way and let Balwyn into the game.
“Half-time was just about resetting back to our gameplan, just following it through for longer and trying to fight to play our way for a little bit longer.”
Doncaster East had the chance to face Balwyn twice during the regular season, but lost both encounters by a three to four goal margin. The second lost came just three weeks out from the end of the season, putting distance between the two sides on the ladder.
But the Lions were able to flip the script when it mattered, with coach James saying they were able to change a few strategies to give them an advantage.
“We went back and looked at what they did well against us and put some plans in place around that.
“We ran a tag on Sunday which we haven’t done all year and did a few little things around the stoppage which took away their strength. The boys carried it out well.
“Obviously, they got us twice during the year, one we thought we were right in the game until the end. They gave us some good learnings and we knew they wouldn’t change too much, so we just changed a little to nullify their strengths and open up ours.”
When the season was prematurely ended in 2021, Doncaster East sat dead last at the bottom of the ladder. The Lions only managed two wins from their nine games, sitting well adrift of the top sides in the premier division when covid interrupted.
Fast forward to now and the Lions have enjoyed a drastic improvement across 2022, scoring their spot in finals and now eyeing off a deeper run into September.
James said that despite his new position with the team, he could sense early on that finals were a realistic possibility.
“Not knowing the league, for me it was probably after we lost to Vermont early in round one.
“We responded with back-to-back wins against South Croydon and Noble Park at Noble Park. They are two clubs who are always up towards the top, and we thought alright we’ve competed well against them so we’re as much in this competition as anyone.
“We just have to keep proving ourselves for another three weeks.”
Doncaster East now move on to face South Croydon this weekend, with the winner awarded a spot in the preliminary final.
The Lions only faced South Croydon once during the regular season, defeating them by 55-points well back in round four. The game played out similarly to their first finals, with the Lions able to put the foot down after half-time and pull away to a comfortable victory.
James is aware of the different gameplan that the Bulldogs will throw at them this weekend, despite not facing the team since early in the year.
“I think they pose a different challenge with the way they force you to defend.
“They like to chip the ball around and get a bit of dash off half-back. It’s about controlling their uncontested game, we’re comfortable with our contested game so we probably need to make it a bit more contested.
“They have had their troubles defending against the top teams, so if we can defend well and force them to defend for longer then we can give them more of a challenge than us.”
