Royals in the box seat to finish on top of the ladder after outmuscling Railways from quarter time

Royals made a strong statement in their quest to win three straight Great Southern Football League premierships, knocking off their closest rival Railways by 21 points in a wet and blustery top-of-the-table clash at Centennial Stadium on Sunday. The Lions reclaimed top spot and are in the box seat to host this month’s second semifinal at their home ground after outclassing the Tigers from quarter-time onwards. In heavy conditions from overnight and morning rain, the Lions quickly erased a 17-point quarter-time deficit with four goals in the second term. From there the home side kicked the only goal of the third term and went on to celebrate Michael McGlade’s 150th game in style with a 6.9 (45) to 3.6 (24) win. Lions coach Andrew Ruck said it was a pleasing victory over the team they will meet in the first week of the finals. “We were pretty lucky in the first quarter, I think it was 14 inside-50s to three,” Ruck said. “Our back six were really solid today. “We matched it with them and then we got it on the outside a bit more and I thought we were smarter with our ball use in the third. “We said we can’t win it in the third but we can certainly set ourselves up and that’s what we did.” Goals to Zak Hortin and then Kane Shephard gave the Tigers the early jump before the reigning premiers clicked into gear and went into half-time with a 10-point lead after majors from Hamish McMorran, Cooper Childs, Ryan Kinnear and Chandler Askevold-McDonald. The third quarter proved decisive as the Tigers kicked to the end favoured by the strong wind and failed to capitalise booting only one behind while McMorran jailed his second at the other end to stretch the margin to 16 points. The Lions peppered the goalmouth in the final term and a run of behinds was broken by impressive debutant Ryley Valli as he kicked his first goal of league footy to snuff out the Tigers. Youngster Andrew Smith kicked the Tigers’ third major late in the final term but his side coughed up top spot as their nine-game winning streak ended. The Lions’ midfield won the clearance count with Cameron Allison again in dominant form and well supported by David Parker and McGlade. Jordan Heil and Brayden Parker were allowed to roam the half-back line with freedom and both had a strong influence on the outcome and youngster Ben Altus continued to show terrific signs in defence. The Lions were successful without star trio Steven Edwards, Jayson Ford and Declan McNamara. The Tigers had an afternoon to forget, losing Haydn Sproxton (hamstring) and Joel Want to injury and star forward Matt Palfrey went goalless and was yellow carded in the second for a high bump on Rhys Jones. Mitch Green was busy in his return from injury, Logan Stubber won plenty of ball in the midfield and Shephard was solid in the opening half but their side fell down badly up forward. The Tigers have lost their last six games at Centennial against the Lions. “It was a disappointing display,” Tigers coach Mark Bayliss said. “A lot of our good players had bad games on the same day. “To give Royals credit their intent to win the contest was better, they out ran us today and set up better and they are clearly the favourites.”