Lancefield kept its finals hopes alive with a hard-fought win over Wallan in the Riddell District Football League on Saturday.
After getting out to a 32-point lead in the third quarter, the Tigers watched that evaporate as Wallan’s Ben Schraven kicked four goals in eight minutes.
The Magpies hit the front late in the quarter and led by one point at the last break.
But in a tight and dramatic final quarter, a late Tigers point gave them a 12.8 (80)-12.7 (79) win.
Tigers’ coach Ashley Manning said the last quarter was just an arm wrestle.
“It was a battle of the defences,” Manning said. “We kicked a goal to go up and then their coach kicked a sensational goal from the boundary to level the scores.
“There was about eight minutes left and we spent about six minutes of that in our forward line. We were trying to get a score.
“We scrambled through a point at the 21 and a half minute mark and it was then about hanging on and our backline stood strong.”
Myles Dorman kicked five goals for Lancefield and Jon Kent chipped in with three.
Phillip Conway was named the Tigers’ best, along with Adam Sayers and Drew Hynninen.
The win, the Tigers’ first against a side above them on the ladder, couldn’t have come at a better time. They are now just a game behind the sixth-placed Magpies. The Sunbury Kangaroos split the two teams on the ladder, equal on points with the Tigers.
Manning said they just had to focus on winning their last two games, against Woodend-Hesket and Romsey, and not on what the other teams were doing. He said finals would be a feather in the cap for the club, which hasn’t been in the mix the past few years.
“We’ve improved this year,” Manning said. “We had two 100-point losses last year and this year there’s been nothing over 50 points.
“Unless there was an upset it was always likely going to come down to this game [against Wallan] for us to stay in the mix.
“We still have two tough games to go. Woodend-Hesket will be hard to beat and it was a close game against Romsey last time.”
In other matches, Broadford beat Rupertswood by three points, Diggers Rest was too good for Woodend-Hesket, Riddell smashed Rockbank, Romsey recorded a 116-point win over Melton Centrals and Macedon beat Sunbury Kangaroos.
