The North Ballarat Rebels have recorded their third win for the season, overcoming a persistent Geelong Falcons outfit by 14 points at Reid Oval as Toby Prime reports.
In a tight contest all day, the Rebels were able to will themselves on the contest in the final term to run out 12.10 (82) to 10.8 (68) winners.
North Ballarat coach David Loader said that he was pleased that his boys were able to get a win over perennial finalists the Geelong Falcons.
“We’re rapt, we’re just really pleased that the guys can dig and win a close game because they are the ones that you hate losing,” Loader said.
“It was a great test and it’s just very pleasing when our boys stand up and win a game of footy like that,” he said.
North Ballarat set the tone early in the first term with their strong presence around the contests allowing the Rebels to skip away in the first term.
Loader said that he talked about the need to increase the pressure in the first quarter with his team during the week.
“We haven’t been great in that area in the past couple of weeks so that was one we thought we could really improve on,” he said.
The Falcons were able to keep themselves within arms length at quarter-time, trailing by only nine points at the first interval.
With Falcons coach Aaron Greaves asking for his team to lift their enthusiasm, his players responded in the second term going goal-for-goal with the Rebels tightening the margin to four points at half time.
North Ballarat seized the momentum early in the second half getting out to a two goal lead before the Falcons looked like they may run away with the contest halfway through the third term.
The Falcons hit the front through consecutive goals to Jai Sheahan, Lachlan Edwards and captain Taylor Adams.
The Rebels rallied late in the quarter taking a 14-point lead into the final change, with Michael Close creating a number of headaches up forward for the Falcons’ defense.
The Falcons got within one goal in the final quarter, but the Rebels were able to lock the ball in their forward 50 creating a number of scoring chances.
The loss sees the Falcons slip to eighth on the ladder, joining four other teams on two wins and two losses.
Loader said that he was happy with the evenness of his team’s workload in the win.
“We’ve had our last two games, we’ve had large groups of blokes that have been low on possessions so to get a good spread like we did today was really good,” he said.
The Rebels travel to Coburg City Oval next weekend to take on the reigning premier Calder Cannons in a match Loader said would be a strong challenge for his group.
“We’ve got a fairly good belief in the squad that we have got and if they can keep showing character like that we become a hard side to play against.”
Last Modified on 06/05/2011 10:56