By Connor Schmidtke
Warrandyte claimed an important win last weekend over the Whitehorse Pioneers, helping them to climb temporarily clear of the logjam in the race for second spot.
Warrandyte, Coldstream, and Donvale have all secured their spot in the top four already this year, but just one game and percentage is separating the three teams as they all stake a claim for the second chance in 2022.
The tight win against the Pioneers last weekend helped the Bloods to skip into second for the time being, but Coldstream and Donvale both have a game in hand as Warrandyte enjoy a bye this weekend.
Warrandyte will face the bottom three teams on the ladder across the final three weeks of the season, which may prove important as they hold the lowest percentage of those three sides currently. Both Donvale and Coldstream are still yet to play ladder leaders the Waverley Blues.
A feature of the Bloods season so far has been their ability to win the tight games, hanging on to claim victory in five-games that were decided by less than 10-points.
Warrandyte head coach, Paul Donahoo said that he was happy to get the win against Whitehorse, who served up a really good brand of football against them.
“To be honest I thought we just pinched the game, I thought we’d lost it with five minutes to go.
“Taking the four points was the best thing we could have come away with, Whitehorse played a good, solid tough game of football and on their ground, they do that really well.
“It was just another gritty win; I’ve lost track of how many wins we’ve had under a goal or two this year. Being able to do that, bouncing back and kicking two goals in the final five minutes gives us confidence that if that comes around in finals, we know we can win the close games.”
With such a tight competition between the top four teams in the division this season, every side will be looking for an advantage to give them the edge heading into finals.
For Donahoo and Warrandyte, that edge comes from one of their key strengths, their defence.
“One of our biggest strengths is our defence, and how we set up.
“Some of our players like Josh Beasley down there at fullback, these sorts of players that roll through our backline have been really good.
“It’s one thing I’m conscious of, you look at Waverley Blues and they’ve got a heap of forwards who can kick a big score. Donvale and Coldstream have got the same ability, so we’re going in and looking at how we can dissect those.
“For us it’s been a real defensive look to set ourselves up, restricting opposition teams. We love keeping teams below 60 to 70 points per game, so we back ourselves in defensively.
One big highlight for Warrandyte this season came right back at the start of the year in round one, knocking off Waverley Blues in a close contest to open their year.
As it stands, the Bloods are the only team to beat Waverley Blues this season, as they have gone on a 13-game winning stream since that loss.
But coach Donahoo says his side took more out of their second clash, a loss, than they did the win in round one.
“Round one we snuck a win away, but tactically we don’t take a lot out of that one being the first game of the season.
“I think we got a lot out of the last one though.
“They set up really well around the middle of the ground. Their backs are quite attacking, they like to sit off the contest and run forward and they love to move the ball through the middle of the ground.
“It’s almost like a rugby scrum of players going through, using hands and chipping the ball around. Then you get forward of centre and look up and you’ve got an intimidating forward line, so you’ve got to cut it off coming through the middle.”
Warrandyte will enjoy a week off this Saturday, a chance to rest and recover before starting their run home towards finals.