EFL 2018: Montrose scores a 13-point win over East Ringwood to leave the Roos on brink of relegation
EAST Ringwood is staring at the prospect of relegation from the top tier for the first time in nearly half a century after Montrose scored a 13-point win over the Roos.
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LITTLE has separated Montrose and East Ringwood on the Division 1 ladder this year.
And little separated the two sides battling to avoid relegation on Saturday as Montrose prevailed by 13 points in an absorbing Eastern Football League clash.
The margin only twice tipped over two goals — East Ringwood got out to a 15-point lead midway through the first term and then in the final quarter when Montrose kicked the last three goals of the game to finish with a 11.9 (75) to 8.14 (62) win.
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Star forward Billy Schilling proved the difference with a six-goal haul, including two telling long-range set shots in the last quarter.
Demons ruckman Andrew Haining played a telling final 30 minutes, veteran Brett Johnson wound back the clock with a vintage display and Sam Gibson showed why he was recruited from Box Hill with countless desperate efforts in the midfield.
A win would have lifted East Ringwood out of the drop zone for the first time since Round 3, but instead the Roos need to make up two games on the Demons with six rounds remaining to avoid relegation and are facing the prospect of demotion from the top tier for the first time since 1973.
Both sides have had chances to secure their places in the Premier competition next year — East Ringwood lost its first three games by a combined 15 points and Montrose has had two two-point defeats — but the Demons would now be favoured to avoid the axe.
Montrose coach Peter Bastinac said the consequences of the result crossed his mind in a nailbiting final term.
“I haven’t really thought too much about it because I’ve backed our boys in and I know that East Ringwood were setting themselves for this game a couple of weeks out,” Bastinac said.
“Today was probably the most I’d felt it, I tried not to but obviously when the scores are (nearly) level at three-quarter time, it did enter my mind.”
Trailing by four points at the final change, Bastinac said his players were aware what was at stake.
“I think it showed in that last quarter when the game was there, our boys were really good,” he said.
“But I don’t think we’re safe, I just think we just want to try and win more games.
“That would be our goal, try and win our home games and just be really competitive against the sides above us.”
The first term produced 11 goals at a bitterly cold Montrose Recreation Reserve — the only thing missing was snow on the peaks of nearby Mount Dandenong — before the second quarter delivered just eight behinds to put scores level at 40 apiece at halftime.
East Ringwood hit the lead three time in the third term but neither side kicked consecutive goals.
Schilling gave Montrose the lead with his fifth major at the four-minute mark in the last quarter and the home side never relinquished its advantage to post its fourth win of the season.
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