Sport
18 August, 2022
Learmonth ready to make some noise
LEARMONTH coach Nick Willox hopes his side will use its return to the finals this season as a springboard for prolonged success.
LEARMONTH coach Nick Willox hopes his side will use its return to the finals this season as a springboard for prolonged success.
The Lakies will play off in their first final since 2015 when they meet Buninyong in an Elimination Final on Sunday afternoon.
Learmonth has been this season’s big improvers; finishing seventh after strengthening its young team with a cohort of established stars, including full-forward Damon Folkes who finished second in the league’s goalkicking.
Willox, who played in consecutive preliminary finals for Learmonth in 2008-09, believes the club has achieved “the first step” in ensuring it consolidates itself as a contender for years to come.
“You hope to be able to maintain a list capable of getting to finals over a number of years and hope to break through to a Grand Final,” he said.
“Step one was making it and now it’s a matter of building upon that, which is becoming harder to do in country footy so it’s a massive credit to everyone at the club that have helped make it happen.
“A lot of our guys haven’t played finals before. They’re all just excited to get straight into it, as is the whole club for that fact as we’ve got our reserves playing finals, the under 18s and every grade in netball, which is a fantastic achievement.
Despite losing its last two matches, Learmonth did enough to qualify for the finals after a run of six consecutive victories, albeit all against teams in the bottom half of the league.
This week’s opponent Bunninyong is the only top eight team the Lakies have defeated this season, with Willox identifying maintaining the intensity, generally shown in the first ten minutes, throughout the whole game as the key to winning finals.
“Our first quarters have normally been pretty good, but we’ve fallen away in the second and third quarters before finishing strongly,” he said.
“Everyone will be pumped up for those first few minutes but then it’s about what we do after that and how we get across over four quarters.”
Learmonth and Buninyong will meet in their Elimination Final at Waubra on Sunday.