Supersaints break hoodoo

St Albans coach Alex Tortora (Sports Media Image/Marcel Berens)

St Albans has broken its hoodoo in the GFNL with a strong 26-point win over Lara at Bisinella Oval on Saturday.

The Supersaints trailed the Cats by nine points at half-time, but surged home in the second half kicking nine goals to three, for a final score of 11.12 (78) to 7.10 (52).

This is the first win for St Albans since 2019.

“It’s been a long time between drinks,” coach Alex Tortora said.

“It was wonderful to see so many smiling faces and happy people, families, volunteers, obviously players and coaches who put so much work in and effort and finally get a bit of reward, and I think it was extremely pleasing for the football club as a whole.”

Tortora said talent could only take a team so far, but keeping up the pressure for a whole match and working well as a team are the crucial ingredients.

“I just feel our pressure and intensity around the contest and our willingness to work for each other unselfishly was probably the difference this week for us, and we were able to do that for a sustained period of time, versus other games and weeks,” he said.

Tortora, who took over coaching the team for the 2022 season, said he was extremely proud of the players and now they had that first win it would give them the confidence they could do it again.

“Obviously the monkey’s off the back, which is just a huge relief really so we can sort of get on with it and understand that we do know how to win, have that winning feeling and understand we can refer back to this point,” he said.

“You certainly hope that that’s the case and you keep working hard and if you keep doing that then hopefully the outcomes will start to look after themselves from here, but certainly glad to get that one out of the way, no doubt.

“I’m just really, really proud of my boys.

“They’re super resilient, keep turning up, keep doing the work and they got their just rewards this week.”