By Connor Schmidtke
With five games to go in the Division One regular season, East Ringwood have already locked in a spot in the finals after a dominant year.
The Roos have won an incredible 12 of 13 games so far, with their only loss coming against their main competition in the undefeated Mooroolbark. That loss came in Round Five by only 12 points, with East Ringwood going on a tear in the weeks following.
East Ringwood were the second-best side in the truncated 2021 season, sitting behind the now promoted Park Orchards for the majority of the season. East Ringwood, under coach, Ben Osborne have taken another step this year and look to be one of only two teams with a genuine premiership chance.
Osborne said a key to the Roos success has been the combination of youth and experience in his starting side.
“We have a really good mix of our age demographic. Probably half the side is under 21, and the other half in that 27 and over age bracket.
“We’re getting great leadership out on the ground and then the excitement and the talent of our youth coming through.
“It puts us in a good spot for now and then the future.”
The key statistic behind East Ringwood’s dominance has been their defensive power. The Roos have conceded the lowest scores against in Division one, restricting sides to low totals in every game so far.
The highest score they have conceded to this point of the season was against the undefeated Mooroolbark, who scored 74-points for the game.
Osborne said that defence is a priority for his side, helping to set up the rest of their gameplan.
“We’re a defence first team, I don’t shy away from that.
“I suppose that comes from my coaching and my system, being a backs coach for quite some time. Being able to set up well behind the footy if we get our contest work done well, helps us to be a forward half team as much as we can.
“If we can get that ball forward, we feel like we can set up pretty well behind the footy.
“A lot of that work has to be done by the midfielders, getting the contest work done and getting the ball forward. We’ve got some big bodies and some good speed through there which has been good. We feel like we’re getting that balance right now, it’s been a bit of a growth year but we’re feeling like we’re heading in the right direction.”
East Ringwood will get a second crack at Mooroolbark this weekend in a top of the table clash. With only one loss between the two sides so far this season, it could very well be a preview of what lies ahead in the finals.
The game will kickstart the run home to finals for the Roos, where they will look to continue their hot form heading into the postseason.
Osborne says that his side took a lot from their first meeting with Mooroolbark, that they can use this weekend.
“We know they can score heavily. We had the game on our terms for most of the first half, but they overrun us in that second half.
“They move the ball quickly; they’ve got a lot of high-quality players in their side. We know they bat pretty deep through their midfield, that’s one thing we saw last time and as they’ve gone through the year.
“What we learned from last time is our best is good enough, we showed that in the first half. As soon as you go away from that against quality sides, they’ll take advantage of that and take the momentum of you, and they did that.
“We feel that if we can have the game on our terms for long enough and keep the momentum, we can get the result that we want.”