Tara Murray
It was a win 14 years in the making for St Albans on Sunday in the Essendon District Football League division 1.
The Saints faced Oak Park in an elimination final, searching for its first finals win in the EDFL and their first finals win in 14 years.
The win was anything but easy and straightforward.
It was Oak Park that started the better of the teams before St Albans controlled the middle two quarters, but were wasteful in front of goal.
The game got halted in the last minute of the third quarter due to lightning with the Saints 21 points in front.
After 40 minutes the game resumed, going straight into the fourth quarter.
Oak Park came again and got the margin back to two points. The Saints were able to steady, winning 12.19 (91)-12.5 (77).
Saints coach Zammy Muhtari was thrilled to get the win.
“I’m ecstatic for the boys and the club,” he said. “It’s been a long time since they’ve won a senior final.
“It’s been 14 years. It’s been a long time for the supporters and they are thirsty to have some success.
“It was good for them and it was good for the players.”
Muhtari said the message at quarter time was to go back to playing calm football and stick to the process.
He said they had their chances early, but just weren’t able to convert.
“They had six scoring shots and we had seven ourselves and we couldn’t convert,” he said.
“We just needed to stay composed and stay in the momentum and when the opportunity comes, make the most of it.”
The Saints still struggled to convert in the middle two quarters when they had control and left the door open for the Kangaroos.
Muhtari said he had never been in a situation with lightning before and he said the biggest thing was the unknown of what was going to happen.
He said they didn’t know whether it would be stop-start or if they would get back on. He said it was hard as they had a bit of momentum when the game was halted.
“Eventually we got back on and to their credit they came out and put it to us,” he said.
“We had to respond, which we did, which was the result we wanted. At least we got to play out the game which was what we wanted.
Bol Kolang ended up with four goals for the Saints and had a dominant last quarter with three goals.
Muhtari said Kolang has been in and out of the side this season, but said they knew when he would be back and available and it showed in the last quarter how important he is to the team.
Victor Micallef, Matthew Gundry were really strong, while Jayden Kretiuk and their rucks were other solid contributors.
The win sets up a semi final with Hillside on Sunday.
Muhtari said they were hopeful skipper Jack Sims would be back for that match.
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