IT might be a cliche that the third term is the premiership quarter, but on Sunday it was most certainly true for the under 17 Bathurst Giants.
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It was the Giants’ performance in that quarter that set up a Central West AFL premiership success with a 12-6-78 to 6-2-38 victory over the Bathurst Bushrangers.
Until the third quarter the grand final battle had been tight at George Park 1, with just eight points in it at half-time.
But the Giants came out after the long break to boot four majors to the Bushrangers’ one, blowing out their advantage to 27 points heading into the final term.
“Like all good grand finals, it was a good battle, it was very even up until half-time,” Giants coach Jason Molkentin said.
“We were able to kick away a little bit in the third quarter and that allowed us to break the game open.
“It was pretty much a momentum shift, the thing we had in our favour was that we had a lot more players. We had six-seven players on the interchange bench, so we were able to rotate people pretty well to help with general fatigue.”
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Heading into Sunday’s grand final, the head-to-head between the Bathurst rivals stood at two wins apiece.
However, given the Bushrangers’ victories had come in the most recent meetings, Molkentin felt they deserved favouritism.
“We might have been in the grand final first, but I felt that we were somewhat the underdog. The last two times we played that team they had beaten us pretty convincingly,” he said.
“Even though they were under-manned in the numbers of players they could field, they have developed a pretty good style of play. So I certainly was concerned at the prospect of playing them given they’d beaten us the last two times.”
The Bushrangers showed why Molkentin had concerns as they took the lead in the opening term with a pair of majors.
The Giants wrestled back the lead in the second quarter for a slim 5-2-32 to 4-0-24 advantage at half-time, but when returning to the field they kicked away.
The experienced core of Molkentin’s team lifted to the challenge and the advantage of a strong bench showed. Fresh legs allowed the Giants to have greater run and on the back of that, the goals came.
Aiden Macauley, who has also shone inside 50 for the senior Giants, booted six majors in a man of the match performance.
“There’s always passion between the two clubs, so it was certainly a hard fought game and we managed to get away with it,” Molkentin said.
“We’ve got some players in our team that are playing senior football as well, they are consistently playing at that higher level throughout the season, so that certainly serves them well in the bigger games.
“He [Macauley] continued his goal-kicking form from the seniors, he kicked six goals which is a good effort in a grand final, particularly when it is a bit wet and the ball is a bit slippery.
“So it was a good effort on a tough day of footy – he played in the forward line and bit in the midfield as well.”