By Cam Scott
THE final game at the Scorpions’ Newcomen Road home ground brought out the best in fierce rivals Port Melbourne and the Scorpions on Sunday.
The Scorpions, buoyed by an inspiring visit from former Richmond, Collingwood and Sydney coach Tom Hafey at their Saturday morning training session, gave their old ground a fitting sendoff with a gutsy 26point victory.
In an ironic rematch of the previous ‘last ever’ game at Newcomen Road, which was held between the same two sides in 2003 and resulted in a drawn match, Sunday’s game was every bit the cliffhanger until the Scorpions kicked away with a blistering sixgoaltoone last term.
Past Scorpions players littered throughout the crowd watched a tight, lowscoring affair, with neither side able to take control until some good ball movement hit the leads of Aaron Fiora (two goals) and Barry Brooks (two goals) in the final term.
Scorpions captain Steven Harrison said after the bitter disappointment of the previous week’s loss to Box Hill, the Scorpions still held out hope of sneaking into this year’s finals.
“Obviously we were pretty disappointed about the week before and we just wanted to get back to running out there with the steel to play for each other and we wanted to work hard for each other – that’s how we win games,” he said.
In order to play in the finals, the Scorpions, aided by a healthy percentage, need to win when they travel to North Ballarat this Saturday, and must rely on Tasmania beating Williamstown on Sunday.
“It’s a big opportunity. I’m looking forward to it,” Harrison said.
“We’re confident about going up there and giving it a good shake.
“If we win you can expect to see a whole bunch of Scorpions at Williamstown barracking for Tassie on Sunday.”
