Reigning VAFA premier University Blacks faces tough run home in race for Premier Division finals
UNIVERSITY Blacks will face either a finals hopeful or club desperate to avoid relegation in a testing finish to the VAFA Premier Division campaign.
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THE final months of the Victorian Amateur Football Association season inevitably throw up unexpected results.
With top-four spots on the line and sides desperate to avoid relegation, the scrap for ladder positions has traditionally been fierce.
University Blacks will confront either a finals hopeful or a club fighting to stay in Premier Division over the remaining rounds of 2015.
The reigning premier tackles Old Trinity, University Blues, St Bernard’s, Collegians and Old Xaverians over the run home.
Seventh-placed Collegians is the lowest ranked of those teams, but sits just one game outside the finals spots after 11 rounds.
Uni Blacks also has matches against the division’s bottom-two sides, Beaumaris and De La Salle, to come.
Coach Luke O’Connell (above) acknowledged his side’s final seven matches would provide a stern test.
“I think that last seven games, it’s going to be about as tough of a seven-game stretch as you can get,” O’Connell said.
“We’ve got to play well and we’ve got to win to have any chance of playing finals.
“I can’t imagine there’s going to be a spare minute in those seven games.”
Uni Blacks moved into the top four for the first time this year after beating Old Scotch last week.
O’Connell’s side has won six of its past seven matches, building a head of steam heading into the second half of the campaign.
“It’s a lot better than the way we started,” he said.
“It’s been a bit of a build once we got our training standards right and some players back.”
O’Connell said rising stars Jordan Quaile, Joel Ernest and Alastair Robbins had been crucial to Uni Blacks’ resurgence.
“They’ve certainly done their part,” he said.
“What we’ve seen is with our older players, they’ve been able to rise to the challenge as well.”
The VAFA’s top-four tiers return to action on July 18 after a two-week lay-off.
Uni Blacks will host premiership contender Old Trinity, while University Blues travel to ladder-leader St Bernard’s.
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