Sunday Wrap | The Courier | August 27, 2023
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00:00 Welcome to our second edition of our football wrap program.
00:03 For the weekend, I'm David Brown,
00:04 I'm joined by Edward Holland.
00:06 Good evening, Edward.
00:07 - Evening, David, how you doing?
00:08 - Yeah, all right.
00:09 Sunday, a massive day of football
00:11 in the Central Highlands Football League.
00:13 And we'll talk about that very shortly.
00:16 More drama and yeah, it's just delivering in spades.
00:19 But before we go into that,
00:21 just a bit of an update on the injuries
00:24 you spoke about last night for Sebastopol,
00:27 which could be crucial going into the finals
00:29 because the Borough has finished third.
00:32 They're set to play, hopefully,
00:34 a big part in the Premiership race,
00:36 but not good news.
00:38 - Yeah, so there was some carnage yesterday
00:39 at Mighty Bush Reserve for Sebastopol.
00:42 Probably the biggest story of them all
00:44 is playing co-coach Luke Keel.
00:46 His finals campaign, his season's over,
00:48 he's broken his leg,
00:49 he was admitted to hospital last night.
00:52 So thoughts go out to him,
00:54 but he's not the only one, unfortunately, for the Borough.
00:57 So Keel's finals campaign is over.
00:59 They're sweating on scans for Toby Hutt,
01:01 their key forward who's leading the goalkeeping out
01:04 at the Borough this season.
01:06 Knee injury there, so fingers crossed for him,
01:09 but they are a little bit nervous
01:11 as they await scans midweek.
01:13 And James Keeble as well,
01:15 they were worried it was a hamstring injury,
01:17 but it might just be a really bad corky knee.
01:20 Either way, in a do or die scenario,
01:23 Michael Colombo said in a do or die scenario,
01:25 he plays and that is next week,
01:26 so we'll have to see how he goes.
01:27 But once again, we'll find out midweek how they're looking,
01:30 and then a few other boys, Liam Stowe,
01:33 came back through the reserves
01:34 and actually did a hamstring in the reserves as well.
01:36 So yeah, a bit of a blow for the Borough.
01:39 - Yeah, it's not good news,
01:41 and the worst possible outcome is going into a final series.
01:44 But in the Central Highlands today,
01:45 we had our second elimination and qualifying finals.
01:49 And first of all, we'll go to the results
01:52 of the second qualifying final
01:54 between reigning Premier Gordon and Hepburn at Learmonth,
01:57 and it was a win to the Eagles, 14,892 to Hepburn, 8,957.
02:02 The Eagles getting away in the last quarter.
02:04 There wasn't a lot in this game.
02:06 Gordon led for most of it,
02:08 and they just, they more or less kept Hepburn at arm's length
02:13 and at the end though, it was the reigning Premier
02:17 that put the foot, the gas down,
02:19 and they ran away to a comfortable win.
02:22 So like Springbank, they get a week off
02:27 and await a preliminary final encounter
02:32 in a couple of weeks' time.
02:33 So at the moment, those two teams,
02:35 Gordon and Springbank, by winning the qualifying finals,
02:38 they are on target to meet
02:40 in a second consecutive grand final.
02:43 But there's a little bit to play out before then,
02:45 but right now you'd say those two
02:47 are the favourites for the flag.
02:50 The other game today was an elimination final.
02:53 Of course, yesterday we saw Carnum Linton
02:56 win their first final against Newell.
02:58 And today it was Skipton's turn,
03:00 another former Lexington Plains League club,
03:02 and they won a dramatic elimination final
03:07 over Dunstown by six points, 10,868, Dunstown, 8,1462.
03:12 If you don't do anything else,
03:15 the best way to see what happened
03:17 is to watch the last 10 minutes
03:19 of our live stream today of this game.
03:22 It was just unbelievable.
03:24 Dunstown, they grabbed the ascendancy in the third quarter
03:28 after scores were level at half time.
03:30 And the three quarter time,
03:32 the margin wasn't so great that they were unbeatable,
03:37 but they certainly had control of the game.
03:40 And as the last quarter went on,
03:42 it looked more and more like the Towners would hold on.
03:46 They'd been the better team all day.
03:48 Their defensive side of their game was outstanding.
03:52 Their tackling, they just shut down the midfield of Skipton.
03:57 And they looked like going into time on,
04:02 that while the margin wasn't great,
04:04 that they had enough up their sleeve.
04:06 But then virtually out of nowhere,
04:09 I could just about see the Skipton supporters
04:10 walking out the gate, you know.
04:12 But out of nowhere, they just produced some special moments,
04:16 Reece Monument, what a game he had.
04:19 He's a sharpshooter at Skipton,
04:22 and he certainly delivered in that last quarter
04:24 with a couple of clutch goals.
04:27 And it was the big fella in Jack Peters,
04:31 not long back from a knee reconstruction.
04:34 He kicked a long goal to level the scores.
04:37 And when he did that,
04:38 it looked like it might be extra time.
04:43 The quarter kept going and going.
04:44 I think in the end it went for 35 minutes.
04:46 One of the reasons for that, or the main reason I guess,
04:49 was that the big defender for Skipton, Ben Crowell,
04:54 landed very heavily.
04:56 And it looked like he was knocked out for a while.
04:58 So we'll have to follow that one through during the week.
05:00 And he had to be helped from the field.
05:02 So there was quite an amount of extra time.
05:05 But the clock kept ticking.
05:07 Skipton hit the front.
05:10 There was still time for Dunstown to get back
05:13 and equal the scores again after Monument
05:18 had put them in front.
05:19 But yeah, Peters leveled the scores.
05:21 Monument kicked a goal in front and they held on.
05:26 But for a long time it looked like extra time.
05:28 It's really hard to get the,
05:31 if you weren't there to get what it really felt like.
05:33 So have a look at the live footage
05:37 from our live stream today.
05:39 So yeah, fantastic weekend of finals football
05:42 to get things underway.
05:44 Excuse me, after calling the game today,
05:46 or two days, my voice is absolutely gone.
05:49 So before we finish,
05:50 Carnum Linton play Bungaree at Bunningham on Saturday
05:53 in the first of the semifinals.
05:55 And the second semifinal will be Hepburn versus Skipton
05:58 at Learmoth.
06:00 We will live stream the first Saturday's game,
06:03 Carnum Linton versus Bungaree at Bunningham.
06:06 Unfortunately, we cannot get any...
06:11 - Signal. - Signal, that's the word.
06:13 Signal at Learmoth.
06:14 So all we can do there is we will call the game
06:18 and record it.
06:19 And that will be Hepburn against Skipton
06:21 in the other semifinal.
06:22 And those games are cutthroat,
06:24 as those teams battle it out to go up against Gordon
06:28 and Springbank the week after.
06:30 So yeah, just so much happening
06:32 in both the Ballarat and Central Highlands leagues.
06:35 Hope you've had your footy fixed for the weekend,
06:38 either locally or on the big stage.
06:40 I know a Melbourne supporter here, very happy,
06:43 and a very happy North Melbourne supporter here.
06:46 A lot of people know I'm a Kangaroo supporter.
06:49 We do it pretty hard and we have in recent times,
06:51 but yeah, good finish to the season there
06:54 and some ripper football locally.
06:56 So until we catch up with everyone on Thursday night
07:00 with more Teams Talk, it's goodnight from me,
07:02 and it's...
07:03 - Goodnight from me, Edward.
07:05 - It's supposed to be goodnight from him.
07:06 Goodnight.