Bannockburn climbs from seventh to fifth to make finals and overtake North Geelong and Inverleigh in crazy finish to GDFNL season

Three teams were vying for one spot in the final minutes of the home-and-away season, and the Tigers came from seventh to steal the last spot at the death. Here’s how it happened.

Bannockburn has qualified for the finals in dramatic fashion. Picture: Mark Wilson

Bannockburn knew its GDFNL finals hopes hinged on an “all-out attack” heading into its fourth quarter against Bell Post Hill on Saturday.

The final spot in the Geelong and District Football Netball League finals race went down to the very last minutes of the home-and-away season, with the Tigers sneaking into the finals by 0.85 per cent in an epic finish.

Reigning premier Inverleigh started the round in fifth but found themselves slipping to seventh by three-quarter-time as they trailed Anakie by just four points, with North Geelong, leading Belmont Lions by two points and Bannockburn, up by 16 against the Panthers, jumping ahead.

Tigers coach Ron Pilgrim said he had been “quietly confident” Anakie would get over the top of the Hawks, with his immediate concern laying instead with the Magpies-Lions fixture.

“Looking at the draw I thought we’d need to score pretty heavily,” Pilgrim said, as his Tigers raced out to a 31-point quarter time lead.

“The first (thing) we had to do was obviously win but that quickly turned to being able to score frequently and quickly.”

Bannockburn big man Kieran Fulton starred on return from concussion to help the Tigers reach finals. Picture: Mark Wilson

Bannockburn was bolstered by the return of Kieran Fulton, who starred in the ruck and up forward, as well as Geelong Falcons-listed Leigham Elzinga (four goals) and Ryan Perkins, with Pilgrim and his coaching staff deliberately avoiding looking at the other scores until just after half time.

“Obviously the focus had to be on what we were doing and we had to win to begin with,” he said.

“As the game wore on, we could look at what we needed to do.

“It’s funny, we didn’t kick a goal in the third quarter and that became a bit concerning looking at the other scores.”

The Hawks, two points ahead of North Geelong and Bannockburn heading into the final round, had their destiny in their own hands with a win enough to make finals and they kicked a late goal at the 24th minute mark to get within one point of the Roos.

But Anakie managed to hold on and break the reigning premiers’ hearts, with Inverleigh finishing in seventh position.

Bannockburn coach Ron Pilgrim was doing “the finals math” in his head in the final minutes of Saturday’s win over Bell Post Hill. Picture: Mark Wilson

As Pilgrim predicted, the drama was between North Geelong and Bannockburn as both kicked away in the final quarter.

North Geelong entered the round with two per cent more than Bannockburn and were in the box seat to advance after kicking the first four goals of the final quarter.

And after Bell Post Hill, who had won their last four games, slashed Bannockburn’s 43-point lead back to 16 by three quarter time, slight alarm bells rang as the Tigers needed a response.

“I still thought we were going to win the game but that’s when you have to shift your focus to looking at the other side’s scores and what we need to do,” Pilgrim said.

“The focus, get a really good start to that fourth quarter and then it was an all-out attack from there.”

The Tigers managed to overtake the Magpies with a blistering last term, where they piled on 8.4 to Bell Post Hill’s 1.3 to win by 59 points, while North Geelong got over the line by 21.

And with the Magpies-Lions’ fixture finished before Bannockburn’s final quarter against the Panthers, the Tigers knew what they had needed to do.

“We had a couple minutes were we got to 40 points in front and I quickly tried to do the maths in my head, and said ‘okay we need to score quickly because I know it’s going to be tight,” Pilgrim said.

“We needed to win by 50 because they (North Geelong) were four per cent in front. We had a couple boys doing the proper calculations.”

North Geelong coach Peter Riccardi has lifted the Magpies from 11th to 6th and within 0.85 per cent of a finals campaign in his first year in charge. Picture: Mark Wilson

In the end it was Douglas Thomas and Josh Kunjka’s finals-shaping goals at the 32nd and 34th minute marks respectively which lifted Bannockburn’s percentage to 104.93 to jump into fifth, narrowly ahead of North Geelong’s 104.08 in what was a shattering blow for Geelong great Peter Riccardi’s side.

“Dougie was running into an open goal and thought he was clear and tripped but the guy pushed him in the back – that was a good one – and then Josh, he had two shots on the goal in the last 30 seconds and kicked one and missed one so they were up and about,” Pilgrim said.

“It was good, the boys knew (about finals) before they walked off.”

It means Bannockburn will face fourth-placed Thomson, who suffered a 38-point defeat to Werribee Centrals on Saturday afternoon, in an elimination final next weekend.

Belmont Lions (second) and Werribee Centrals (third) will do battle in a qualifying final with the two sides finishing on 56 points apiece.

Originally published as Bannockburn climbs from seventh to fifth to make finals and overtake North Geelong and Inverleigh in crazy finish to GDFNL season