Swans take nail-biter

Sth Barwon. (Photograph by Marcel Berens).

The top five on the GFNL ladder is anything but certain going into the last round of the season, after Newtown & Chillwell, Leopold and South Barwon all had wins on Saturday and all sit on 48 points.

The closest game of the weekend was that between South Barwon and top-placed St Mary’s at McDonald Reserve in Belmont, coming down to the wire in what Swans coach Mark Neeld described as a real nail-biter, with the scores level at the final break.

“St Mary’s got a bit of a jump in the first quarter and we managed to get that back to a goal at half time,” Neeld said.

“It was very close all day and I think it would be fair to describe it as an arm wrestle.”

The Swans went on to win by nine points in a fairly low-scoring game, with the final scores 8.8 (56) to 6.11 (47).

Neeld said it was difficult to pick any individual stand-out players, with many stepping up at different times on the day.

“It was a low-scoring game and with that there were many stoppages, many contests which forces people to put their hand up at various different times,” he said.

“I think both sides had players that for periods of time played really well, not necessarily the whole day, so that’s a really difficult one to answer.”

Neeld pointed out the overall quality and closeness of the GFNL competition, born out by the three teams separated only by percentage, and said that next week’s game against Colac will be another tough competition and a real crowd-pleaser.

“It’s a really good standard of footy” he said.

“I’m sure that the people who will get to our game on the weekend to see us take on Colac will be pretty impressed with what they see, from both clubs.

“There’s a couple of other really good games and I’m sure the final series will be the same.”