DEER Park secured the Western Region Football League minor
premiership and earned a week off with a 79-point win over Hoppers
Crossing on Saturday.
The Lions will have a rest this weekend as the four teams below it battle it out in qualifying and elimination finals.
Deer Park will then meet the winner of the Spotswood-Sunshine qualifying final in the semi finals.
DIVISION 1: Finals form guide
The Lions needed only to win to claim top spot, and with five goals to two in the opening term jumped out to an early lead.
The Warriors, preliminary finalists in 2012, could manage only one
goal in the second quarter as Deer Park put another four through the
big sticks to carry a 40-point lead into the half-time break.
With two wobbly losses to Sunshine and Spotswood in the past two
months Deer Park needed to finish the home-and-away season emphatically,
and 10 second-half goals to four put paid to any hopes Hoppers had of
limiting the damage.
Chris Stewart booted four for Deer Park, while Kwame McHarg
snagged the league goalkicking title with three, taking his season tally
to 68. The Lions had three players inside the top 10, with Cameron
Trewin (42) and Stewart (39) ranking fifth and ninth respectively. Corey
Brown capped off a good year with a best-on-ground display.
Coach Marc Bullen lauded his playing group. “It’s a great effort
to get through and finish on top,” he said. “Our goal was to make finals
but we got ourselves in a good position throughout the year and to
finish 16-2 is a terrific effort.
“We’ll watch Spotswood and Sunshine and hopefully they belt the hell out of each other.”
In other games St Albans had its biggest win of the year over
North Footscray, belting the Devils to the tune of 248 points. Albion
led Yarraville Seddon by 24 points at the final break but kicked only
two behinds in the final term and lost by a point.
