Early wins have St Mary’s eyeing a maiden NFL Division 2 finals appearance

Three straight wins have St Mary’s sitting among the NFL Division 2 leaders ahead of a critical clash against top-five rival Diamond Creek.

Jacob Yeomans marks for St Mary's. Picture: Hamish Blair

St Mary’s strong start to the season has the club eyeing a maiden NFL Division 2 finals campaign.

The Burras sit third on percentage after the opening four rounds, equal on three wins with league-leader Lower Plenty, Eltham and Banyule.

An 18-point win over old rival Panton Hill at Whatmough Park on Saturday was the club’s third consecutive win after an opening round lesson from Banyule.

A critical clash against top-five rival Diamond Creek looms this week.

St Mary’s coach Fabian Carelli hoped the early-season form would give his team the platform to challenge the established hierarchy.

“We’re quite happy at the moment, as a group we wanted to get off to a strong start and bank early wins,” he said.

“When we looked at the fixture at the start of the year and said we’ve got a good opportunity to get some early wins.

“You’ve still got to take it week-by-week but we’ve ticked off a couple of those wins that we wanted and it allows us now to build momentum into the next block of games.

“That’s our ultimate aim, to play finals, and hopefully this week will help us achieve that.”

The Burras have been able to bank wins despite missing several key players, including 2021 Team of the Year forward Tane Cotter, 2019 Team of the Year gun Myles Gulden, Jake Dambrauskas and Dillan Ronalds.

In their place the likes of Bailey Leonard, Dean Castagnini and Riley O’Sullivan have stood up.

Castagnini was best-on-ground in the win over Panton Hill, while O’Sullivan has booted five goals in his past two games.

St Mary’s have also recruited strongly, bringing in Vincent Loccisano from Montmorency, Simon and Tom Carafa (Eltham) and O’Sullivan (Macleod).

Lachlan Potter in action for St Mary's.

“Vinny has fitted into the group really well, the Carafa brothers from Eltham have been exceptional and we picked up Riley O’Sullivan from Macleod juniors,” Carelli said.

“Riley’s been playing predominantly on the wing but we send him deep forward occasionally because he can take a strong mark.

“He loves leaping at the footy and can take a strong mark for his size but he’s also played some good footy on the wing, so it’s just another string added to his bow.

“The recruits fit into what we’re trying to do, build a foundation with our 21, 22, 23-year-olds that we’ve already got.

“We’ve still pushed up some 19s this year, Cooper Bruce, Lachie Read and Bailey Leonard has returned as well to boost our ruck stocks.

St Mary’s will look to make it four wins on the trot when they host the Creekers on Saturday.

The Burras won the first meeting between the pair in 2019 by four points but have lost the past two by 8 and 56 points respectively.

The Creekers are coming off a 121-point win over Epping, in which they kept the Pingers goalless, and Carelli knows his team will need to be switched on the entire match.

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“It’s a really big one for us, Diamond Creek at home,” he said.

“With a young group consistency is the key and that mental challenge of trying to sustain four quarters of strong footy week-in, week-out.

“Even being 3-1 we’ve had lapses in all four games, so it’s become a really strong focus for us.

“We want to make sure we’re playing good consistent footy across the four quarters, that’s one area we’ve failed in so far – that consistency.”