Greensborough turn the tables on Heidelberg to seal NFL Division 1 minor premiership
Greensborough sealed its first NFL Division 1 minor premiership since 2015 by beating Heidelberg to avenge its only loss of the season and guarantee a week off in the first week of finals.
Local Footy
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Greensborough coach Mick Harford says a week off come finals is a “great reward” for his players after his club sealed the minor premiership on Saturday.
The Borough avenged their only loss of the NFL Division 1 season with a 34-point win over Heidelberg at War Memorial Park, leaving them three games clear in top spot.
“It’s been a hectic 10 weeks, it’s been a long 10 weeks, really heavy grounds, so it’s a great reward for effort to get a week off,” Harford said.
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“It’s really important to make sure we’re really fresh and everyone gets a break.
“We had a couple of small goals at the start of the year and one of them was being able to beat every team at least once.
“Heidelberg was the only team at this stage of the year we hadn’t beaten, so that was our focus.”
After a final-round clash with Hurstbridge and the week off, Harford’s men will meet the winner of Heidelberg and North Heidelberg in the major semi-final on Saturday, September 7.
Greensborough jumped out to an 11-point lead at quarter-time against Heidelberg and extended the lead to 30 points at half-time as Tom Bell caught fire.
Borough’s wayward kicking in the second half and the final four goals of the game saved the Tigers from a humiliating loss, as it finished 15.14 (104) to 11.4 (70).
Ben Fennell was outstanding with four goals, while Andrew Stellas, Charlie Molyneux and Zak McCubbin (three goals) also impressed.
Harford said he wanted to avoid any major changes in the final week of the regular season.
“We won’t rest for the sake of resting. Because we’ve got the first week of finals off, I don’t want guys missing two weeks if they don’t have to,” he said.
“We’ll play as strong a team as we can next week … the plan is to continue with our best team and finish the year strongly.”
The news gets better for Greensborough with Brody Tickell set to return this week, while Jordan McIvor-Clark should be available after North Melbourne’s VFL season is over but Tynan Smith could miss finals as part of Essendon’s VFL squad.
Elsewhere, West Preston-Lakeside secured fourth place with a 42-point win over Bundoora, while Montmorency has one foot in finals after defeating Macleod by eight-points to leap-frog the Roos into fifth.
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