Nomads’ shot at title
The New England Nomads have booked their spot in this weekend’s grand final with a hard-fought 97 (14.13) to 83 (12.11) win over the Tamworth Kangaroos at Bellevue Oval on Saturday.
In a fast-paced preliminary final, the Nomads overcame a late fight back to set up a rematch with fierce rivals the Inverell Saints in the decider.
The New England outfit led the Kangaroos by three goals in the last quarter but squandered a number of opportunities to seal the game.
However, they were able to edge clear in the dying minutes and maintained their composure to win by a comfortable margin.
Nomads’ player-coach Tom Granleese said he believed their major semi-final loss to the Saints helped his side during the tense match.
“It wasn’t comfortable until the last couple of minutes, but we were fine with nerves,” he said.
“A lot of our uncertainty was quashed in the major semi-final, you need to play that first one to really understand what it’s all about and I think we dealt well with the pressure of the situation.”
Key player Weston Whitby led from the front for the Nomads, booting five goals, while Caleb Dobos kicked three.
Granleese also reserved special praise for the contributions of John Freund, Riley Connor and Benji Julian in a performance he described as a “real team effort”.
He said the Nomads’ improved attitude gave him optimism ahead of the grand final, but claimed the Saints deserved to be labelled as favourites.
“Given how they’ve gone this season they are entitled to be, but I’m confident going into the game and we’ll be pretty disappointed if we don’t win,” he said.
“The margin has been close against them this season but our attitude wasn’t right when we played them last time, we just thought things would happen.”
Granleese said he would look to change his approach to the match after watching his side suffer an 89-69 defeat to the Saints in their last encounter.
“We’ve all got to contribute and we can’t just kick long to attack because their guys will just keep marking the ball,” he said.
“So we’ll have to get back to playing our running game and work on our precision.”
The grand final will be played at Inverell’s Varley Oval, with kick-off scheduled for 2pm.
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Round PF 2012
Nomads def. Roos | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
G | B | P | G | B | P | ||
Q1 | 4 | 3 | 27 | 2 | 2 | 14 | |
HT | 8 | 6 | 54 | 5 | 6 | 36 | |
Q3 | 10 | 7 | 67 | 8 | 10 | 58 | |
FT | 14 | 13 | 97 | 12 | 11 | 83 |
Team:
- V. Chakalisa,
- R. Connor,
- H. Cook,
- A. Cruickshank,
- S. Cusack,
- C. Dobos,
- G. Elson,
- J. Freund,
- J. Frost,
- D. Graan,
- T. Granleese,
- B. Julien,
- N. Lambie,
- L. McLeod,
- D. Richards,
- K. Rowlings,
- S. Stubbs,
- J. Tilto,
- P. Tobias,
- A. Walsh,
- W. Whitby,
- M. Woodward.
Goalscorers:
- W. Whitby (5),
- C. Dobos (3),
- N. Lambie (2),
- G. Elson,
- S. Cusack,
- S. Stubbs.
Award winners:
- W. Whitby (Players' Player),
- D. Graan (Coach's),
- N. Lambie (President's),
- K. Rowlings (Captain's),
- B. Julien (VC's),
- L. McLeod (Red Rooster).
August 30th, 2012 at 3:26 pm
Nomads,
When you run onto the ground on Saturday have a look at the scoreboard. The score will be nil for both sides. It does not matter what has happened during the year. The only thing that counts is what you as a team do in the next four quarters. Go Nomads.
Brendo