Advertisement

Tigers spoil Eagles' party

AFL triple premiership player and 2001 Brownlow medalist Jason Akermanis gets plenty of attention from Kambalda youngsters Chase Paparone, 13, Kye Mayo, 11, Taimana Pratley, 11, and Allan Kearns, 7, during a junior training session at half-time of Sunday’s league clash. Picture: Mary Meagher

Boulder are just a win away from matching last year's five Goldfields Football League victories after comfortably beating Kambalda in a see-sawing contest last Sunday.

After the Tigers finished fourth with a 5-11 win-loss record and bowed out of 2014 flag contention with a first semifinal loss to Mines Rovers, coach Bradley George was adamant his group had grossly under-achieved.

An inability to get across the line in tight matches cost Boulder dearly last season, but they moved within a game of first-placed Mines Rovers after prevailing by 24 points, 10.12 (72) to 7.6 (48).

The result spoiled an otherwise big day on their home ground for Kambalda, who hosted 2001 Brownlow medallist and triple AFL premiership player Jason Akermanis.

After trouncing Kambalda in round 2 by 53 points, the Tigers started in similar fashion with the breeze - piling on five goals to none to quarter-time.

But Kambalda held their opposition to three behinds in the second term before wrestling back the momentum with a powerful five-goal third quarter.

It cut the deficit to six points, but Boulder controlled the last quarter, three goals to none.

Boulder again produced an even spread of goalkickers, Chris Bowie and Alex Devitt booting three each.

Kambalda coach Justin Tarasinski lamented his players' inability to make further inroads on the breeze in the second quarter and not running out the game.

"In that second term, to be honest, I don't think we played it too well (because) we went too short, missed targets and had probably 12 turnovers," he said.

"Then everything clicked in the third quarter and we played outstanding footy. But maybe at three-quarter-time, the players got a bit complacent with our earlier efforts and figured the wind would do it for them, but we just didn't use it to our advantage."

It has been a frustrating few weeks for Tarasinski, whose charges have dropped back-to-back games since upsetting reigning premiers Railways in round 4.

But they get a chance to break the sequence against a winless Kalgoorlie on Saturday night.