WODONGA Raiders re-emerged as a team capable of going deep into the finals series after snapping the recent ascendancy held by North Albury with a gritty 11-point victory at Birallee Park on Saturday.
The Raiders had not beaten the Hoppers since round 14 in 2005 with North Albury winning their previous nine encounters.
Raiders’ coach Corey Lambert also ended the seven-match winning streak his former North Albury premiership teammate Travis Hodgson had built in head-to-head coaching battles.
The Raiders will enter their first finals series since 2003 with renewed confidence for their elimination final showdown against a teetering Wangaratta Rovers at Bunton Park with the Hoppers left to face the biggest threat to Albury claiming back-to-back premierships, Yarrawonga, in the qualifying final.
After scores were level at half-time, the Raiders pushed their lead out to a match high 19 points in the third quarter before the Hoppers trimmed the deficit to nine points at the last change.
The match had been a dour struggle from the outset with both teams encountering dominant defences and in the final quarter they kicked one goal apiece for the Raiders to sneak home.
“(North Albury’s recent dominance) is something you think about and once you do get the result it is certainly a relief and very exciting,” Lambert said.
“We did the work early and all we wanted to do at the start of the year when we set our goals was to win 12 games which we thought would get us there and play finals.
“Our form hasn’t been the best, but we thought last week we improved a little against Albury and to get a good result against a side that just kept coming was great as well.
“Hopefully we can keep building going into the finals next week.”
The most crucial piece of play in the game unfolded midway through the final quarter when youngster Jack Melrose stopped Kade Klemke in his tracks, won a free kick for holding the ball and passed off to Daniel Steinhauser.
Steinhauser’ s kick deep into the forward line landed in the arms of full-forward Tony Pierri, who kicked his fourth goal of the game to clinch the Doug Strang Medal with 71 goals for the season and the prospect of more to come in the finals.
The Raiders work rate was up from the outset and midfield duo Mark Doolan and Tom Langlands led the way with a combined tackle count of 23 in a season-high team total of 75.
They also won numerous possessions in tight and blunted the impact of Hoppers’ onballers Brandon Ryan, Matt Murray and Matt McDonald.
Elsewhere the Raiders had excellent contributors in ruckman Dean Heta, who has stepped up in recent weeks, Daniel Frawley and Jarrod Gorupic.
Heta’s ability to hold his own in the ruck afforded the Raiders luxury to stick with Scott Meyer on North Albury star Daniel Leslie for the entire game and take the points in their head-to-head battle.
The only time Leslie threatened to break clear was the second term when he kicked two goals to bring the Hoppers back into the game.
His second goal came after the half-time siren when he completed a juggling mark from an errant kick from the last line of defence by the Raiders.
The Hoppers were best served by Kane Godde, Klemke, Damian Cupido and Brent Piltz, who had some real impact when he was switched into the ruck.
North Albury is also poised to regain Nic Holman for the qualifying final with the Hoppers coach Travis Hodgson firmly focused on the finals.
“We can’t dwell on the result today because it has no impact on our season at all,” he said.
“We’ve done the work and got third spot, but we would have liked to have won definitely.
“I thought up to half-time it was a reasonably even game, but after half-time they just outplayed us.
“We got smashed inside 50 after half-time and a lot of entries went to 40 metres out from goal.
“The better side on the day won; there is no doubt about that.”
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