By Callum Ludwig
The Wesburn U15s have had a turn of form that has seen them embark on a long-running winning streak.
The Doggies are now in the finals series, which they began with a strong 12.10, 82 to 1.3,9 victory over Healesville.
Head Coach Kane McDonald said last time he spoke to the Star Mail back in May, the side was coming off a pretty bad run of form.
“We got our form together with a 150-point win over Yarra Glen, which was only our second win of the year at that point, and we went on an eight-in-a-row winning streak after that,” he said.
“The only game we didn’t win was against the top side Gembrook Cockatoo as the game was called off in the second quarter due to lightning, so it would have been nice to see how that played out.”
Wesburn finished the home-and-away season in third spot, with a record of 8 wins, 1 draw and 5 losses for the season, only one win behind each of Gembrook-Cockatoo (1st) and Monbulk (2nd).
McDonald said he was pleased with the Healesville win.
“We played them earlier in the year and they got us over there by three points, then we beat them at home by just under a goal as well as playing them in the last round of the regular season, which we won strongly over there,” he said.
“When we came up against them the next week in the first final I was a bit worried that the boys would think it would be a pretty easy win. But fortunately, they kept their heads up and it shows their mental toughness that they were able to do it again.”
Wesburn now takes on Monbulk in the semi-final at Upwey-Tecoma’s Talaskia Reserve, starting at 3.50pm on Sunday 14 August.
McDonald said it will be interesting to see how the sides match up.
“We haven’t played them since round four when we had a pretty slow start to the year, but we know they’re a pretty tough side and we are going to have to bring our best footy against them,” he said.
“I’m pretty confident with the group, we’ve got a pretty strong side so we could definitely win this week and go all the way to the Big Dance (the Grand Final), if we lose we go into prelim so we have got the second chance to fall back on but obviously we hope not to use that.”
Wesburn has a strong selection of key players, with Jasper Barry appearing in their best players a whopping 12 times (most of any player in the league), William Hin 9 times (second-most), Brock Caneva 8 times (4th), Jace Hamilton (5th), Koby Wunhym (7th) and Nathaniel Lucas (8th) making up six of the league’s most consistent contributors.
McDonald said the group has total belief in themselves.
“I think the big thing for us all year as we’ve come together is mateship, and I think just doing the one percenters, we don’t let anything phase us. When we’re on the ground, you are putting your body on the line at contest after contest,” he said.
“If they go all the way, it’ll be a massive reflection on the playing group and the coaching group as it’s a pretty young coaching group, but we’ve got a couple of runners and team managers, a couple of old boys that have put a lot of work in all year.”
Wesburn’s Nathaniel Lucas (30) and Jace Hamilton (29) also finished as the league’s leading goalkickers for the season.
McDonald said the pair have been two main targets for the side going forward.
“They started the season a bit sluggish but after they got a couple of goals each in a couple of games, it just started to fall in line,” he said.
“They’re pretty strong these two, we’ve got Nate who he’s not a big guy but who can lead and has great leap and then we’ve got Jace and they actually work really well together.”
McDonald said the team definitely believe they can go all the way.
“They’ve learnt a lot about structure, and how to switch the footy and take the game on this year, to play a risky game and make a risky contest, I’ve said from the start I’m not going to have a crack at them for taking the game on,” he said.
“It was great to see a lot of the U15’s turn up to watch the Warby (Warburton-Millgrove) U18s win the Grand Final last weekend as well. We loved to see them win it last week, I played with a lot of those guys [at Wesburn] so it was good for them to finally lift the cup and see some joy.”
