By: Matt Fotia
Notoriously the toughest Division to pick throughout the Eastern Football League, this year Division 2 has been a two horse race since the early rounds.
Knox and Doncaster East will do battle one final time this Saturday, with the winner claiming a place in the top flight for 2018.
Finishing atop the table were Knox, two games clear of its upcoming opponent, the Lions. They deserved their double chance, and took full advantage putting Doncaster East to the sword in the second semi-final to earn a precious week off.
“Everybody plays for the double chance, and everybody plays to get the week off,” Knox senior coach David Madigan said.
“It (the week off) has been good. A chance to nurse a few injuries and then go again.”
Despite its 17-1 record over the course of the home and away season, Knox was still doubted by many as to whether it was the number one side in the competition. The aforementioned win over the Lions in the second semi sent a message out to those listening. Doubt us at your peril.
It is performances like that which give the coach the confidence to stick true to the game plan that has taken all before them thus far. The problem is, Doncaster East will know that game plan back to front, as this weekend will be the fourth meeting between the two sides.
“There is always a few things that you learn each time you play against an opponent, so there will be a few little things that we may do differently, but we won’t be straying from the way we want to go about our footy,” Madigan said.
“It’ll just be some stuff on the margins of that plan that you adjust.”
Madigan was on hand to see the Lions rebound strongly to book their place in the big dance, and was impressed with what the Lions produced.
“I went down and watched the game, they were really impressive particularly in the second half once they got a bit of a sniff, they were terrific – they looked like they were right on song last week.”
It is amazing that the Falcons still have doubters at this stage of the year. They’ve beaten every side at least once. They have the second-best offence in the competition (home and away), just 13 points behind the Lions, and only a defensive-minded Upper Ferntree Gully side was more miserly throughout the regular season.
Midfields James Curtiss and Luke Williams will have to be at the best of their very good abilities come Saturday as well. They’ll go head to head with the Lions star studded on-ball brigade. The goal kicking skipper Nick Batsanis, his brother – the polished Nathan Batsanis, and Brock McLean, who is Brock McLean.
Jack Beech has hit form at the right time of the season. The big man’s last three performances have seen him kick two goals and finish sixth-best against Mitcham,
snag three majors in a BOG performance against Mulgrave and complete the set with a goal and another BOG game in their defeat of Doncaster East a fortnight ago.
Madigan is aware that for all the excitement that grand final week brings, there may be some very tough decisions to make come the Thursday night selection meeting.
“There are always a couple of tough decisions,” he said.
“There’s a couple of guys that will put their case forward after returning from injury that we will have a look at, so yeah there is always a couple of tough decisions going into grand final week.”
It is a testament to Knox the way it has handled its relegation from the first division in 2016. Not many clubs are able to perform the direct return that the Falcons are currently lining up.
The coach says that it wasn’t the number one goal for this season.
“It wasn’t necessarily a plan to go straight back up, when you are relegated to second division you don’t know where you stand, so we were really just about continuing our development with our young list,” he said.
“I think we are in a good place to go back up, given the depth of what we’ve got at the club, our under-19s have been strong all year, unfortunately our development squad went out against Lilydale at the weekend, but we’ve had three good teams this year, so I think that puts us in a pretty good place to go straight back up.”
As we very well know premierships aren’t just about the players and the coach.
Despite having been a first division club for a few years, the Knox faithful haven’t tasted success for a while. A win this weekend would be special for those proud Knox people.
“We are a very lucky club in terms of the level of support we get, the last month or so the place has been buzzing,” Madigan said.
“I think the committee, the people with Thursday night dinners, the people that are there every week riding every bump and bruise, there is a pretty big contingent of people that would be extremely happy to see the siren go with us in front on the scoreboard come Saturday afternoon.”
Doncaster East needed to bounce back after a disappointing loss to Knox in the second semi a fortnight ago and bounce back they did. The Lions won three out of four quarters against the Mustangs in a massive 57-point victory to set up another clash with the Falcons this weekend.
Coach Steve Buckle was pleased with the way his side carried themselves throughout last week, epitomised by their performance on Saturday.
“We needed to respond and we needed a strong response after the rubbish we dished up against Knox the week before…a major focus was that we started well and put all our energy into that game,” Buckle said.
“A big focus and key phrase around the group was ‘Bring the heat’ which is something we’ve done for most of the year. We aimed to bring it on Saturday and we did, started really, really well, lull in the second but managed to find our feet again in the third.”
The best offensive unit in the competition this season, the Lions forward line has plenty of viable goal kicking options. Thomas Gordon has 50 goals for the year, which has also seen him pull in two BOG games in recent weeks against Wantirna South and Knox.
His fellow big man Jake Summers has kicked 23 for the season from just 14 games. Smalls Jack Sholakis with 23 goals, (five last week) and skipper Nick Batsanis has 22 goals whilst James Locke has slotted through 18. Locke has been in the Lions’ best 10 times this year and has found himself there the last four weeks on the trot.
Unlike their opponents, the Lions have been to the big dance in recent history. They lost to cross- town rivals Doncaster in the 2015 decider and made the finals in 2016. Buckle will be using that loss from 2015 as extra motivation for those players who remain on the list.
“I think that finals stuff goes out the window a little bit because they’ve been playing first division football which is played at a higher intensity, which finals is played at, so it cancels out our finals experience,” he said.
“To the guys who were around for that year (2015), I’ll be touching base with them throughout the week.
“We are probably looking at about 40% of the list still running around (and) I’ll give them a friendly reminder of how it felt and try to squeeze and extra five percent out of them, which will put us on the right track.”
Unlike Knox, Doncaster East is not bouncing straight back up. They’re trying to finally claim their place in the pinnacle of the Eastern Football League, Division 1. It would be a massive achievement for a club who would be considered ‘small’ in local footy circles.
“It’d be huge. That’s been the goal from the start, it’s not a hugely supported club, but the blokes that are here, put in a hell of a lot of time, it would be great reward for them,” Buckle said.
“I’d expect to see a lot of tears if we end up victorious this weekend.”
This weekend sees the two best attacking teams in the competition go head to head, neither one of them looking to pull any punches.
In the red corner stand Knox, seasoned veterans who know what it takes to make it at the next level. In the blue corner is Doncaster East, the constant challenger who keep knocking at the door, ready to push it down and storm its way up a division.
The winner gets themselves back in the big leagues, whilst the loser must dust themselves off and go once again.
No matter what happens, this fight is going the distance.
