By Luke D\u2019Anello<\/p>\n
Caroline Springs coach Brian Lake concedes Werribee Districts will enter this weekend\u2019s Western Football League division 1 grand final as favourites, but the three-time AFL premiership star is hopeful his young team can triumph against the odds.<\/p>\n
The Lakers advanced to their first top-flight decider with a tense seven-point victory over Yarraville-Seddon in Saturday\u2019s preliminary final, 11.16 (82)-11.9 (75).<\/p>\n
Caroline Springs led at the final break of the major semi-final against the Tigers before being overrun, while they prevailed by nine points when the pair met in round 15.<\/p>\n
Werribee Districts are contesting their fourth consecutive grand final and will be hungry for the ultimate success after losing to Hoppers Crossing by one point in last year\u2019s season finale, while the Lakers are looking to add to their maiden senior flag in division 2 in 2016.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been the benchmark for a long period of time,\u201d Lake said of Werribee Districts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a very experienced side playing at this time of year, so it\u2019s going to be tough. They\u2019ve had one game in three or four weeks, so they\u2019re going to be fresh. They\u2019re going to be match ready. You still think they will be with such an experienced and older group. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut we beat them the previous time at our ground. They were a little bit banged up in that game. And then we were 17 points up at three-quarter-time against them (in the semi-final), and they ran over the top of us.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, there\u2019s belief. They\u2019re not invincible, but they\u2019re definitely the favourites going into this.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve achieved what we wanted to, playing in a grand final, and now we\u2019ve got to take that next step. But we\u2019re excited for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lakers were sweating on the fitness of skipper Keenan O\u2019Shea, who had a sore hamstring and was scheduled to have scans on Monday.<\/p>\n
Little separated Caroline Springs and the Yarraville-Seddon in Saturday\u2019s preliminary final, with Lake\u2019s men trailing in time on of the final term before nailing the last two goals of the match to secure victory.<\/p>\n
The club exited the flag race on the penultimate weekend of the season last year and went out at the same stage in 2022 after finishing minor premier with a 17-1 home-and-away record.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings we\u2019ve trained, we were able to execute late, which was fantastic, and that was the most pleasing thing,\u201d Lake said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do get nervous. Those last couple of minutes, (you ask) are we jinxed a little bit? But, no, it\u2019s huge for the footy club. I guess with the senior women as well being able to win (the premiership), our under-18 girls winning it, it\u2019s been a good year. One more week to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Champion veteran Ryan Allan starred for the winners, booting four goals in a best-afield performance.<\/p>\n
Ethan Mantas, Max Tessari, Alexander Paech, Jack Heron and Mitchell Bongiovanni (two goals) also shone.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s grand final will be staged at Werribee\u2019s Avalon Airport Oval from 2.30pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Luke D\u2019Anello Caroline Springs coach Brian Lake concedes Werribee Districts will enter this weekend\u2019s Western Football League…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-145644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}