St Albans is hoping to kick start its Essendon District Football League division 1 season.
The Saints started the season with four wins and were the early pacesetters before five straight losses brought them back to the pack.
They were able to break that streak on Saturday against Craigieburn, after deadline.
Saints coach Zammy Muhtari admits it’s been a less than ideal season with the number of injuries piling up.
“I feel for the boys,” he said. “We’ve got six or seven guys out for the season,” he said.
“They’re stacking up. We have to move the magnets week to week.
“We’re losing one or two players a week. We lost four in the first quarter the other week, it was a bit of a hit.”
Among those out for the season are Bill Sam, Nathan Carroll, Luke McManus and Bol Kolang.
Matthew Grundy has been out for a few weeks and will miss a few more, while full back Jayden Kretiuk is another important out.
Brandon Coletta has just returned in one piece of positive news for the Saints.
Muhtari said they were still playing some good football at times without getting the result they were after.
“Besides the first quarter against Roxburgh Park on the weekend, it was an even game,” he said.
“They played well and took advantage of the breeze and came out strongly. We’ve been pretty confident with the way that we’ve been playing the last month.
“With the guys we have out, we’re trying to progress and adapt with many having not played many senior games.
“We’re finding a way.”
Injuries to players in their under-18 side hasn’t helped either with numbers either.
One under-18.5 player Mitchell Pittaway made his debut against Roxburgh Park have trained with the senior squad for the past month.
While it’s been tough, the Saints are only a game outside the top five and a finals spot.
Muhtari said the group was still as focused as they had always been as they aim for a third straight finals series in the EDFL.
“We still have high numbers on the track,” he said. “There’s still the belief and they are training as hard as they were in round one, two and three.
“We want to get back on the winning track.”
Having played everyone once, Muhtari said they were keen to finish the second half of the season better than the first half.
He said there were seven or eight teams that could quite easily play finals.
“There were upsets on the weekend and we were part of it,” he said. “The last nine games hopefully ahead of the ledger and hopefully in the top five.”
On Saturday the Saints beat Craigieburn, 12.11 (83)-6.9 (45).
Mason Dipetta, Joshua Klaromenos and Aaron D’cruz were named the Saints best.
“Hopefully it will kick start our season again,” Muhtari said.
