Before this weekend’s match against Shepparton East, the teams’ second meeting of the season, the Wombats were third in the table – despite having lost just once this season.

Lancaster won the round two match by 37 points, but Shepparton East had not lost a game since that match and drew with top team Murchison-Toolamba in round 12 (as did the Wombats in round 5).

Thanks to a first half score of seven goals to two, the Wombats were 40 points ahead at halftime, thanks to an outstanding performance from surprise player Wez Hill.

Hill, who has played ten games in the reserve grade and six games with the senior team (including the last three), will be a headache for the selectors when it comes to selecting the team that will face Murchison-Toolamba in the second week of the finals in Girgarre.

The Wombats and Grasshoppers will contest a repeat of the rain-affected 2022 final on Saturday, August 31. Before that game, Shepparton East will play Tallygaroopna and Avenel will face rivals Nagambie in the other elimination final.

These games will take place on Saturday and Sunday in Avenel and Lancaster, giving the top two teams a weekend to rest before moving on to a game that will decide who goes straight to the grand final.

Lancaster’s large halftime lead was extended to 56 points during a 4:13 period.

From then on, however, it was the Eagles who dominated, scoring nine goals and taking 14 shots on goal while Lancaster managed just one goal (in the 10th minute of the final half).

Lancaster coach Tom Davies said two injuries early in the game took their toll on his group of players and that every magnet move by Shepparton East paid off after three quarters.

Lancaster were also forced to move ruckman Coby O’Neill to the fullback position (when key defender Nick McAuliffe was injured), leaving Hill and Nick Ryan to take over the ruck duties.

“After Coby dropped back, Wez took over most of the rucking and played as the fourth onballer. He played a lot and competed hard,” Davies said.

“They threw the magnets around a little bit and got going. After losing two guys in the first 10 minutes of the game, we were forced to sub out about five guys who wouldn’t have continued playing in an average game.

“It was a really physical game and our boys always came up short.”

He said his team could have responded better in the final quarter, but Shepparton East were a good team and the Wombats ran out of legs.

On the positive side, Paul Newman survived the game unscathed and increased his goal tally to 22 in seven games, while Lachlan Boscarini played 75 percent of the game and also remained uninjured.

“His experience was important towards the end of the game,” Davies said.

He said the week’s rest would help his team, with Danny Foley and Ricky Thompson both expected back on the field in two weeks.

– Merrigum finished the season in 12th place but were extremely competitive against the league’s in-form team, Nagambie.

Just two weeks earlier, Nagambie had inflicted a first defeat on reigning premiers Lancaster and when the Bulldogs played them in the second round, the defeat ended by 78 points.

This time, however, the team from Merrigum stayed in the game and were only four points behind after three quarters.

Nagambie led by 19 points after the first quarter, but defensive leadership from assistant coach Darcy Collins and captain Zak Parkinson saw the lead reduced to 10 points by halftime.

Coach Leigh Hall said his two field captains played defensively all day and were “great as always.”

“We had a good day. We applied a lot of pressure during the stoppages and our skills on the court were very good,” Hall said.

“In the end, they showed a little more finesse and took the win.”

He said it didn’t help that three players had already played a full game of reserves and the Bulldogs had lost key goalscorer Jake Gascoyne in the first quarter.

“To put a top-six team under that kind of pressure with what we had was fantastic,” he said.

Shelby Ludlow-Lambrick and Brad Taylor were again the best midfielders, with Ludlow-Lambrick scoring two goals and assisted by Kyle Armstrong, who had only recently been signed for the season.

Logan Prout also fought hard against third-generation Nagambie star Jonathan Moore.