Mt Barker escape with tense 13-point win over Albany to stitch up top-two finish and finals double chance

Mt Barker held off a late Albany fightback to secure a top-two finish and finals double chance, clinging on for a 13-point win at Retravision Stadium on Saturday. The Bulls led by 37 points midway through the third term but a rampaging Sharks gave the visitors a few nervous moments in the fourth. A scuffle on the boundary line and three late goals injected life into the game in the last term but the Sharks were left to rue a slow first half as the Bulls held on for a gritty 10.10 (70) to 8.9 (57) victory. Bulls coach David Johnson was pleased with his side’s intent for three quarters but said they must improve before the qualifying final in a fortnight. “If we wanna be a serious player in the finals up against the top sides, we need to play four quarters of footy,” Johnson said. “We lost our way a bit and got a bit chaotic, obviously there were a couple of incidents that our guys reacted to and it unsettled us a little bit as well. ‘We’ve just got to maintain our composure and stick to the plan and if we do that we’ll be OK. “We just deviated from what we do best, we talked about controlling the tempo whereas they play a very chaotic brand of footy and if you get sucked into it, they will cut you apart. “They’re (Sharks) always dangerous and their sort of footy can bring ours undone to a degree but I was pretty proud of the boys, certainly for three quarters in the way we played.” The visitors had a blistering first term with star forward Zach Jackson up to his usual tricks, booting four early goals to help his side skip to a 17-point lead. After a run of behinds for both sides, the Sharks’ Lewis Bosch struck first in the second term to cut the margin back to 10 points. However, goals to Dylan Gowdie, Rhys Hogg and Josh Price put the Bulls up by 30 points at the long break. A Brett Peake tackle early in the third term was deemed high and the star was yellow-carded for umpire dissent as Bulls’ Ben Kirkwood kicked the first of the quarter shortly after. Towering forward Matt Martin fired back for the home side but they trailed by 31 points at the last change. The Sharks attacked with flair in the last term, taking risks and moving the ball quickly as they looked to mount an unlikely comeback. Martin found the big sticks early before Peake added another to trim the margin to 20 points. Keegan Berry was then yellow-carded for misconduct, coming off the bench to join a melee on the boundary line. The GSFL have confirmed they are looking into the incident. George Bockman slotted a major from a set shot 35m out in the dying stages but it was too late as the Bulls held on for their 10th win of the year. Ruckman David Stone was busy for the visitors while Brent Parsons played a great shutdown role on Peake to hold him to a single major and set his teammates up the other way. Darcy Wallinger was reliable in the back half alongside Lee Pavlovich while Joel Gray and Hogg worked tirelessly through the middle of the ground. Isaac Baum and Kane Pinney were again the stand-outs for the Sharks and were well supported by Marlin Bennett, Robbie Lee, Kieran Zilm and the returning Dane Holdman in the losing affair. Pinney hurt his ankle and failed to finish the game. Sharks coach Jamie Ramm was pleased with the effort in the late stages despite the lacklustre first half. “You can’t afford to let good sides like that get away and we did, but to our guys credit they didn’t give up,” he said. “That’s our next step as a footy club is to try to have a go at the top teams so at least we didn’t fall right away. There was only one way so we were going to have a go and try to win the game, back ourselves in and move the ball quick. “I thought they did it well, the second half was good for us, the first half we also didn’t have some match-ups right but we settled. But they’re (the Bulls) a good side and you can’t let them get away like that and you’re going to get that every week with the good sides.” The result seals the Bulls qualifying final showdown with Railways on August 27.