Heartbreaking loss leaves Whittlesea’s Northern Football League survival hanging by a thread
Winless Whittlesea needs four wins from its last six games to stay in Northern Football League Division 1 after a tough loss against Eltham on Saturday.
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WHITTLESEA has not given up hope of pulling off a great escape to stay in Northern Football League Division 1 next year despite a heartbreaking loss against Eltham on Saturday.
The Eagles are three games and percentage from safety after going down 7.11 (53) to 6.12 (48) at Whittlesea Showgrounds with six games left in the season.
The winless Eagles tackle West Preston-Lakeside, Lower Plenty and Northcote Park over the next month in matches Dean conceded have become must-win.
“The way it’s panned out now we’ve got to try and win four of our last six games and hope that Eltham don’t win a game,” Dean said.
“That’s just to be safe and we haven’t won a game all year.”
Whittlesea came from 20 points down at three-quarter-time to hit the front in the final quarter of Saturday’s match, going within minutes of a drought-breaking victory.
Dean said the loss was difficult to take after three defeats by 16 points or less in as many weeks.
“Our last month has been reasonably good in terms of our effort levels have gotten where we needed them to be,” he said.
“We concentrated on cleaning up a few things during the week and being smarter when we had the footy.
“Unfortunately we carried that out for two quarters, Eltham controlled the game for two quarters and the difference in the end was we just couldn’t compete for long enough.”
In other matches, Macleod produced a stirring win over Montmorency to jump into the top-five at the expense of Bundoora.
The Bulls suffered a 30-point loss against Heidelberg at Warringal Park to sit sixth with a 6-6 record from 12 games.
Lalor moved a step closer to a top-three spot in Division 2, accounting for Panton Hill by 16 points.
The Bloods were helped by Mernda’s four-point defeat against Diamond Creek, which closed the gap between third and fourth to four points.
Epping was no match for flag favourite North Heidelberg, succumbing by 81 points as Jake Brown and Shane Harvey shared 13 goals for the Dogs.
In Division 3, Thomastown strolled to a 157-point win over Parkside.
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