By Tyler Lewis
A scorching second stanza from Gembrook Cockatoo has punched the Brookers a ticket to the Division One Outer East grand final.
Taking aside the second quarter, Berwick Springs won the contest 8.7 to 5.12, but it means for nothing, as the Titans were unable to contain the wrath of the Brookers for the 30 minutes before the main break.
Brad Coller’s men kicked 10 unanswered majors in the second and had six solid opportunities for more in a scintillating quarter of football.
While the second set up the game, Coller was pleased more with how his side defended earlier against the howling wind at Woori Yallock on Saturday.
“I think it was a five goal breeze in the first half, at least, and I was pretty comfortable with our first quarter,” he said.
“I thought to keep them to two goals was pretty good, we missed a couple of opportunities where we should’ve kicked goals at the other end.
“One out on the full and two misses from set shots that on a still day would’ve probably gone through.
“I knew we’d come with that breeze, but yeah in the second quarter it sort of just clicked for us, we had some enthusiasm and some run on.”
The Brookers ticked over the ton once again in the 15.18 (108) to 8.10 (58) victory, despite competition spearhead Myles Wareham failing to kick a goal.
Coller was pleased with how the spread of goal-kickers got the job done, but politely informed his main target about his performance.
“Yeah we had a good spread of goal kickers and yeah he had a bad day for the first time this year,” he said.
“You can’t be too hard on him, but I got into him for having his worst game in a prelim.”
With his position in the grand final booked, Coller wasn’t shying away from the job at hand in his post-game address.
“I didn’t get too lost in it, I said to the guys to appreciate what we’ve achieved, but all we have achieved is an opportunity,” he said.
“We haven’t achieved anything really, potential is one thing, but potential just means you have proven anything yet.
“We don’t want to sit back and say we’re a young team with good potential, we want to start living up to it and achieve something.”
In the Berwick Springs camp, coach Rodney Benstead felt it was two key areas that cost his side in the second term.
“I think it was a combination of our contested ball numbers being down and then we weren’t able to put enough pressure on them when we had the ball,” he said.
“If you’re not executing those two components of the game, you put a lot of pressure on.
“We let ourselves down in the second quarter; those were the two main areas I felt we were down in.”
The loss didn’t impact his pride within the group.
“I am really, really proud of the efforts and the journey, the journey was just fantastic,” he said.
“It’s another pre-season, another year of connecting together and another year of hard work, its not one thing, there’s a few different areas that we need to improve on.
“I think we have an appetite for it after getting to where we got to, I think the belly burns to progress from a prelim final.
“We have the reserves in a grand final on Friday and have a lot of young players at the club, we will try and be aggressive with our recruiting again and be able to take that next step.
“It’s an exciting place to be and I think we learn a lot from it.”
With one of Seville and Gembrook Cockatoo certain to depart to competition on Friday afternoon, Benstead was adamant in the Titans hunger to succeed in 2023.
“I think being such a young list and seeing where we got to this year, I think the boys are just desperate to take that next step,” he said.
“I won’t cap it, I think everyone in the room after the game… there was disappointment, but there was also an eye on next year and doing the hard-work that gets you to that space.
“I think we will grow a lot from the year and where we got to, we want to win grand finals and be competitive, I don’t think that’s a bad ambition.”
