Gulls twos go down swinging

by Nicholas Duck

Warragul's reserves had their season ended on Sunday in a fighting loss to Moe in the first semi final.

The Gulls twos went in as heavy underdogs but were up for the fight, scrapping their way to an early lead and looking like they might just pull off the upset.
As the day wore on, however, Moe's quality came to the fore, allowing them to kick away in a powerful third quarter display and go on to win 10.10 (70) to 6.8 (44).
You can't begrudge the Gulls for their effort – their earlier games against the Lions ended in genuine thrashings.
The Lions simply had too much class, featuring a number of players who could easily be playing seniors if not for the club's stacked ones.
The gap in skill was most felt in the way they were able to use the ball and find targets inside 50 as opposed to the Gulls, who often missed their targets.
Having scrapped with Warragul for the first half, four straight goals in the third opened the game right up and gave them passage to this week's preliminary final against Leongatha.
Despite the defeat ruck Matt Gray was again best on for Warragul, winning hit outs as well as bashing and crashing his way through the contest in another impressive display for the veteran.
Patrick Carpenter's second and third efforts held him in good stead along with the likes of Anthony Battista, big man Oliver Langford, Tyson O'Leary and defender Lachlan Miller, who helped hold Moe senior coach Leigh Poholke goalless.
For the Lions it was a number of those players regularly making the senior side in years gone by making their presence known, namely Jacob Balfour (three goals) and Jaryn Makepeace.
Aaron Wilson, Jayden Van Dyk, Ben Morrow and Jacob Wood were all highly influential, especially in wrangling back momentum from the Gulls past half time.
Having come in as heavy underdogs Warragul got the quick jump, booting two quick ones via Anthony Battista and Finn Sheehan.
The Lions adjusted somewhat to keep in touch on the scoreboard, but still went into quarter time seven points down.
A largely scoreless second term was played mainly between the arcs but Jayden Van Dyk made an impact with the quarter's only two goals – the second coming right from the top of 50 on the siren.
A turnover allowed Cooper Leighton to put Warragul back in front early in the third but that was to be the last of Warragul's leads, the Lions' quality winning out thanks to consecutive goals from Kurt Holt, Wood, Callum Nash and Balfour.
Needing a spark to give themselves any chance at the beginning of the last, the Gulls found it after Nathan Whitten slotted one on the run and pumped his fist to his teammates, signalling things weren't done yet.
The bridge was too big to cross, however, Warragul going down swinging and having their most successful reserves season in a very long time ended.