Heidelberg continues dominant form, crushing Bundoora to book grand final ticket
Reigning NFNL Division 1 premier Heidelberg will have a chance to defend its crown after a crushing win over arch-rival Bundoora in their semi-final.
Northern
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Heidelberg has cruised into the NFNL Division 1 grand final with a 58-point demolition of arch-rival Bundoora.
The Tigers will defend their crown in a fortnight after an extraordinarily efficient 20.5 (125) to 10.7 (67) victory at Preston City Oval on Saturday.
The reigning premier finished the home-and-away campaign in imperious form, winning its last six matches by an average of 85 points to take the minor premiership and earn a week off.
It now has 78 and 58-point wins over last season’s grand finalist and arguably biggest title threat.
Heidelberg coach Vinny Dattoli said the players were keeping their feet on the ground.
“We trained really well in the week off, maintained our method, executed (on Saturday), so we’re pretty confident in our brand,” he said.
“We knew what was at stake but we’re really process driven.
“We haven’t got ahead of ourselves in any shape or form and we’ll continue to keep doing that over the next fortnight.
“The boys came out of the blocks really hot, maintained the momentum and we were obviously really confident in the second half, we were extremely happy with our performance.”
Having had the week off there was no sign of rust on the Tigers as they burst out of the blocks with a five-goal opening quarter.
A 24-point quarter-time lead blew out to 47 points at half-time as Heidelberg poured on five more goals while keeping the Bulls to just one goal in each quarter.
While Bundoora found a foothold in the game in the second half it couldn’t stem Heidelberg’s scoring – the Tigers winning the third and fourth quarters by five and six points respectively.
Heidelberg’s midfield-forward rotation did much of the damage.
Matt Smith was a standout best-on-ground and kicked three goals, while Brayden Sier (three goals), Kai Kearns (three), Lachie Wilson (two), Matt Schnerring (two), Nathan Honey and Matt Signorello all hit the scoreboard.
“Matt played a very, very good game, more importantly his leadership during the game – organising guys was top notch,” Dattoli said.
“Our two ruckmen did a good job sharing the load, Mitch Jorgensen and Sammy Gilmore, they’ve built a really good relationship.
“We’ve got an extensive group that goes through the midfield, so Brayden rolled through the midfield and Smithy spent some time up forward, which was nice.”
For Bundoora, Joel Lamotte was named best afield, while Hamish Shepheard, Lachie East and John Jorgensen were also strong.
The Bulls will face the winner of Sunday’s knockout semi-final between Montmorency and North Heidelberg.
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Meanwhile, Heidelberg will once again put the feet up and refresh ahead of the grand final.
Dattoli said there was fierce competition for spots with the club’s reserves also winning through to the decider but the under-19s have bowed out.
“We got through unscathed and a couple of boys played in the twos as well so we’ll have 25 or so boys to look at (for the grand final),” he said.
“We’ve got strong belief internally but we’ve got to make sure we keep our finger on the pulse and get stuff done before the grand final.”
Montmorency captain to be given until final minute
Montmorency is through to its first NFNL Division 1 grand final since 2013 and will give skipper Stef Uzelac until the final second to prove his fitness.
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