VAFA: Aquinas the biggest winner in relegation battles

All sections from C to D4 completed their home-and-away rounds on Saturday. The only section to feature a dramatic relegation escape was D1, where the bottom four teams played each other.

Prahran (seventh) was playing at South Melbourne Districts (eighth) while Aquinas (ninth) hosted Emmaus-St Leo’s (tenth).

At three-quarter time of the Aquinas match, the home team led St Leo’s by 31 points. It needed to win by 100 points, keep St Leo’s to a low score, and rely on South Melbourne defeating Prahran if it was to avoid relegation.

Aquinas kicked 10.7 in the final quarter, with full-forward Matt Aver kicking six of his eight, while keeping St Leo’s scoreless. They won by 110 points, 21.17 (143) to 4.9 (33).

When they heard that South Melbourne had won by 69 points, all Aquinas officials crowded around vice-president Bernie Moran as he did his sums on his calculator. Moran revealed that Prahran had slipped form seventh to ninth while Aquinas had risen to eighth because of their superior percentage, 75 to 72.

With one round to go in the top two sections, Old Ivanhoe is assured of relegation in A-section. This is despite its performance in losing to Uni Blues on Saturday by 25 points, having trailed by 24 points at quarter-time.

The Hoers believe they would have been in with a show if not for giving away stupid free-kicks. Their performance underlined just how much they’ve improved since midfielder Brad Thompson replaced Dan Winkel as coach a month ago.

Ninth-placed Old Essendon looks likely to be relegated with Old Ivanhoe after losing Old Xaverians by 110 points.

In B-section, Old Carey have been in the bottom two for most of the season but hauled itself into eighth place with a 33-point victory over Ormond. Hampton Rovers sunk to ninth place after losing to top team Old Melburnians by 77 points.

Comments

  1. Daff, exciting stuff for Aquinas. But, if they were, 31 points ahead at 3/4 time and kicked 10.7 (67) to zilch in the last quarter, that would have given them a 98 point win. Could it have been 12.7 that they kicked in the last quarter? (Sorry, just can’t help myself.)

  2. pauldaffey says

    Gigs,

    If my uncle was my auntie, I’d be a goat-herd before sunrise.

    Or something.

  3. pauldaffey says

    Gigs,

    Last night, after writing the above, I was mopping the floor and wondering from which recess of my mind “goat-herd” came from. Then I found myself channelling Julie Andrews and singing: “High on the hill was a lonely goat-herd …”

    I’d like to change the above to “lonely goat-herd before sunrise”.

  4. Thanks Daff. I was questioning your sanity for awhile there but that makes much more sense…

  5. Paul, earlier in the year Uni Blues only beat Old Ivanhoe by 16 points. Is a 25 point loss an improvement?

  6. Andy,

    If you’re talking one game, no. But improvements generally aren’t measured in two games ten weeks apart. They’re measured more as trends across several weeks, or several seasons.

    And if want to look at them as isolated results, I don’t think there’s much difference between 25 points and 16 points. It’s not even two goals in junk time.

    It seems to me that Old Ivanhoe were rubbish in June and early July and much better in the last month of the season after they’d replaced one coach with another.

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