Keilor’s gallant premiership push came to an end on Saturday, with the club knocked out of the Essendon District Football League premier division finals series by Greenvale.
The Blues went down by 57 points, 18.16 (124) to 10.7 (67).
After a hard fought first term, the Jets showed off their exceptional talent at the resumption of play.
Greenvale booted 11 goals across the next two quarters to leave Keilor well and truly on the back foot.
A further five goals in the final term was the icing on the cake for Greenvale, securing the club a spot in this week’s grand final against Aberfeldie.
Keilor president Brad Bult was quick to praise Greenvale’s efforts.
“Their finish with the football was superb,” he said.
“We just turned the ball over a bit too much. We have to work on that over the summer.
“We recruited pretty hard in the off-season. Where we have come from in rounds two and three to where we are now, we are more than happy with.
“We are certainly going to have a massive summer. Mick McGuane (senior coach) has already had a conversation with me straight after the game about what we have to do and how we are going to sharpen up our skills.”
On what was a tough day for his side, Leigh Burke fought hard for Keilor and was named among the Blues’ best players.
He was well supported by Michael James and Nathan Schroder while up forward, Joshua Linton booted three goals.
For Greenvale, Matthew Smith and Fabian Deluca were the standouts.
Despite the loss Bult was still taking plenty of positives from the Blues’ season.
“We were ranked seventh in the competition at the start of the year and we have ended up third,” he said.
“We believe that is where we should be, maybe a little bit higher. We would have loved to have played off against Aberfeldie next week and would have enjoyed the challenge there.
“We are more than happy with the way the season has gone though.”
Keilor has already locked away its star head coach with McGuane set to return to the club next season.
Blunt was rapt to be able to have the former Collingwood premiership player back for his ninth season.
“Mick is the heart and soul of the club,” he said.
“He can’t catch and mark the ball but what he can do is pick weaknesses in the opposition teams, he will certainly get his match ups right every time.
“He is signed up again for next year and we are quite excited about where we are going.”
While the senior side’s season is now over, the Keilor reserves and under 18s will both play in grand finals this week.
The reserves will take on Greenvale while the under 18s will play Aberfeldie.
