By JARROD POTTER
EFL DIVISION 1 – ROUND 13
RIDING the rollercoaster, Noble Park’s up and down season is soaring once again following a 15-point victory over Norwood.
Missed opportunities highlighted the first term as Noble Park stole it back from the hosts time and time again … but did nothing with it.
The forwards and midfielders squandered the back-line’s dogged work to keep the likes of Leigh Williams (five goals) and Jordan Clarke (two goals) from getting too much of it.
With mistakes mounting, coach Mick Fogarty gave the side both barrels at the quarter-time break – demanding they lift or risk letting its finals chances slipping away.
The surge came on schedule from the first bounce of the second term as Noble Park started to fire. Piva Wright (one goal) seemingly ran through brick walls to give Fogarty something up forward and as a pinch-hitting ruck. His efforts, alongside the evergreen Craig Anderson and a fleet of other strong-willed midfielders, saw the intensity get raised yet again.
Neither side gave an inch, leaving to a hotly contested match that threatened to boil over a few times with a few skirmishes part of a game that both sides were desperate to win.
The Bulls had the Norsemen on a platter through the third – booting away as Tim Harper (four goals) stole the show up forward … mostly. He was clean on the lead, sharp on a set-shot … but Harper’s missed shot running unopposed into the goal-square summed up the second half for the Bulls.
They had the chances to blow the game apart, but failed to make the most of them and gave the hosts one last charge to revive its finals prospects.
They booted four goals in rapid succession to start the fourth term as the visitors sprayed them from everywhere.
It took the cool, calm Vergim Faik to take a mark on the goal-line, go back on a severe angle and slot the match-defining goal to drive home the 13.15 (93) to 12.6 (78) victory.
“I haven’t been this fired up for a number of years and what it tells me personally is that I’ve still got a great passion for coaching and this footy club and was probably as animated as fired up as I’ve been for four years,” Fogarty said. “We understand that they’re going to come at us at a million miles an hour physically and I thought we stood up really well in the second part of the second quarter and started hitting the scoreboard.
“That third quarter was where it was at and a game-breaker – they came hard at us and we knew they’d come hard, but we were a bit disappointed as we had four shots on goal at the start of that last quarter and just needed to kick one and the game was over.”
Faik had 27 hit outs as well in a superb effort for the Bulls alongside usual suspects Kyle Martin (29 possessions), Ben Giobbi and Sam Monaghan while Sean Corrigan and Tyson Mitchem popped up to feature in their best performances for the season.
Returning junior Bella Zijai (two goals) was crafty at the goal-face and Fogarty thought it was great to see another familiar junior return to the Bullring after a shot at the VFL.
“Little Bella – Yilber Zijai – a Noble Park junior and he’s committed to the club and it’s about next year as well,” Fogarty said. “He’d run his race he thought at Sandy (Sandringham) and we tried to get him two years ago, tried to get him at the start of this year but he wanted to have another crack at it.”
Noble Park gave itself a great shot at getting a finals double chance, which starts on Saturday as the fourth placed Bulls battle East Ringwood at home.
“Our form over the last five weeks has been strong, and we believe in ourselves, we’ve got great belief in our group and our list is healthy,” Fogarty said.
In VAFA results, St John’s continued its rampage through Division 2 with a 17-point win over Emmaus St Leos. Trailing at the half, the JOCs dug deep through Rohan Scott (three goals), Dylan Webb, Matt Nicholson and Keith Ash to storm back in front and capture the 9.14 (68) to 7.9 (51) victory. The JOCs are a game clear of West Brunswick atop the table heading into the last month of action, starting this weekend against Eltham Collegians away.
