By Colin MacGillivray

Harrow-Balmoral is now one win away from a second straight undefeated Horsham District Football Netball League premiership campaign, with Noradjuha-Quantong and Swifts set to face off on Saturday for the right to challenge the Roos in the grand final.

Harrow-Balmoral booked a spot in the grand final with a comfortable 18.7 (115) to 4.9 (33) win over the Baggies in Saturday’s second semi final at Edenhope.

The Roos dominated from the outset, scoring 4.3 and keeping the Baggies scoreless in the first term.

So dominant was the Harrow-Balmoral midfield that Swifts’ potent forward line, led by spearhead Paul Summers, had few chances to score.

Swifts mustered only four forward-50 entries in the first quarter as Harrow-Balmoral’s Peter Staude, Will Burbury and Will Plush took advantage of the absence of star Swifts onballer Ryan Folkes – out with a hamstring injury.

The Baggies had only one goal to their name, courtesy of Summers, by three-quarter time, before Harrow-Balmoral eased off in the final term.

Nick Pekin was superb for the Roos with five goals and coach Jai Thompson kicked four, while for Swifts, defenders Jesse Galea-Portelli, Joseph Martin and Mack Padley were in the thick of the action along with veteran midfielder Scott Carey.

Swifts coach Brett Hargreaves said his team would try to quickly put the performance behind it to regroup for the preliminary final.

“That’s why you want to finish in the top two. It’s good to have two swings at it,” he said.

“It wasn’t our day, but I looked at last year’s result and it was something similar. Jeparit-Rainbow went down by 83 points in the semi-final and still made the grand final and got pretty close, so we can draw some comparisons there. It’s not the end of the world.”

Hargreaves admitted Folkes’ loss had hurt the Baggies, but with the star midfielder likely to remain sidelined this weekend, he called on his group to step up.

Swifts beat the Bombers by 31 points in round four, but went down by 28 points in a round 15 rematch.

Hargreaves said his side would aim to rectify mistakes it made during the second encounter.

“I think we were good enough that we could have beaten them the second time around as well, but we just got a few match-ups wrong,” he said. “We’re looking forward to it, because it’s not every day you get to play in a prelim.”

Bombers tame Tigers

Noradjuha-Quantong advanced to the preliminary final by ending Pimpinio’s storybook season with a 15.17 (107) to 4.4 (28) win at Rupanyup on Sunday.

The Bombers produced a smothering first half, keeping the Tigers to just one goal while kicking eight themselves.

In a battle of high-class midfields, it was Noradjuha-Quantong who came out on top, with Pimpinio’s Matt Rosier playing superbly but ultimately outmatched after captain Jason Westley went down with an injury in the first quarter.

“Our midfield group probably isn’t filled with huge names that everyone knows, but geez they’re unbelievable in what they can do,” Noradjuha-Quantong coach Damian Cameron said.

“The likes of James Hallett, James Gregg and Jayden Besford, our starting midfielders, are dominant around the packs.”

The Bombers capitalised on the clearance advantage, with swingman Dylan Shelley kicking three goals and Riley Dunlop and Brock Orval kicking two each – the only three of the Bombers’ 11 individual goal-kickers to slot multiple majors.

Cameron said his team would focus on replicating the form that saw it beat Swifts in their second meeting this season.

“It’s the same thing – they’ve got a strong midfield, as do we, so it will start in there and go down to whichever end the ball is played in most,” he said.

“We made a lot of adjustments the second time we played them and that’s when we had quite a strong win over them, so we want to knuckle down on those things that worked for us that time around.”

Cameron said above all, the Bombers would enjoy the occasion.

“We’ve really enjoyed ourselves this season, and although we had a couple of disappointing losses at the start of the year we’ve had an emphasis on enjoying the season,” he said.

“Obviously you want to win your footy, but you’ve got to enjoy it while you’re there.”

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