Bell Park rising fast: five wins ignite finals push

BELL Park seniors coach James Saker is starting to see his group’s hard work paying off, after a recent surge of form saw the GFL team win five of their past six matches.

More impressively, four of those wins have come against fellow finals hopefuls in Leopold, Newtown & Chilwell, St Marys and Colac.

The Dragons scored the first 49 points against the Tigers on the weekend, and withstood an almighty comeback to prevail by just one point. The finish was marred by controversy around the timing of the final siren, after timekeepers accidentally fired it just minutes before the game was officially ended.

Saker said that aside from the siren debacle, the match was a great learning experience for his young side.

“It was a really good game of footy.

“Obviously our start was really good and our guys brought great intensity. I thought our ball movement early was really good and then, credit to Colac, they really got their game going and we struggled to counteract their dominance at the stoppage.

“It was just a really good education for our guys. We saw that our best is really good, (but) we probably just took the foot off the gas a little bit and allowed (Colac) to get the game going their way and struggled to combat it, but hung tough when we needed to.”

With the Dragons now sitting fifth by just two points ahead of South Barwon, Saker said the big block of five games helped prepare them for this stretch.

He added that recent wins against quality sides such as Colac gave Bell Park great confidence with the finals on the horizon.

“We think we’re getting to know our game and each other really well.

“We’ve got a lot of young players that are really stepping up and learning that they’re capable of mixing it with the best at this level.

“That’s something you’ve got to earn, and our guys have done that through their hard work and hopefully it can hold us in good stead for the next three weeks and whatever goes from there.”

After just missing the finals last year, Saker admitted this season’s fixture helped with Bell Park’s form.

“We’ve had a lot of big games over the past eight weeks, so I think that’s just moulded us to be able to be confident to take our game into these really difficult contests.

“It is nice to be sort of up and going at this time of year.

“At the moment I think we are still trending up and hopefully with a bit of luck with some injury and all that sort of stuff, we can keep progressing.”

The Dragons now face North Shore and Grovedale before finishing their season against reigning premiers Leopold.

South Barwon and Bell Park’s clash is shaping up as a finals-defining showdown, with the winner to solidify fifth place and pressure on their finals hopes — with finals on the horizon.