Albanvale is going to have to do it the hard way if it wants to make the Western Region Football League division 3 grand final.
The Cobras lost to ladder leaders Suns on Saturday, where a win would have seen them with a spot in the big dance.
After losing to the Suns by 91 points in the penultimate round of the season, the Cobras seemed on early and ready to prove they were a better side than what they showed only three weeks ago.
At half time only a straight kick separated the sides at Hansen Reserve.
The second half began with drama, as a Suns player was yellow carded for an incident late in the second quarter, meaning the Suns were down to 17 men for 15 minutes of the third term.
The Cobras were unable to exploit their extra man on the field, only adding one more goal than the Suns. When the player was able to be reintroduced to the match, the Suns began to assert some dominance, growing their lead to 28 points at three quarter time.
In the last term the Cobras couldn’t finish their hard work, missing five shots on goal, with the Suns winning 15.8 (98)-9.13 (67).
Cobras coach Nick Smith said up until half time he was wrapped with the way that we had responded.
But like all year, inaccurate goalkicking was his side’s achilles heel all year.
“I was quite happy, we got plenty of the ball, structured up well, we just couldn’t execute,” he said.
“We kicked ourselves out of it again. I’ve been hanging on to ‘all we need to do is kick straight’ all year.
“It just feels like you’re missing goals all the time, but maybe it’s that we’re just having shots from the wrong spots, hard spots, long spots.
“The problem is that it gives me hope every time, I feel like we do match up alright… and we were really happy how we went about [the game], we just didn’t make the most of it and win.
“It’s hard to sit with because you know the guys aren’t missing on purpose, so it’s a little bit hard to handle when you’re trying to get to sleep at night.”
Reece Field kicked three in the loss, Matthew Taylor had two while Darren Borg was the Cobras best.
However, it is not all doom and gloom for the Cobras, as they face West Footscray in the preliminary final.
“You hope you don’t need to use it but that’s why you win all those games in the year, so if it doesn’t go to plan you get another chance,” Smith said.
“That’s definitely the way we’re looking at it.
“We’ve got winning records against them, so we’re pretty confident… but as the last few years have shown, finals is a different time.”
Harper Sercombe
