VFL: Werribee always tough venue for Roosters

The word is not in his football vocabulary.

However, he does acknowledge there are vagaries which cannot be explained.

The Selkirk Roosters’ record at Werribee fits this category. North Ballarat has had only two wins at the venue since joining the VFL in 1996.

The Roosters had to wait until 2004 for their first and their only other success came in 2011. So not even in their three premiership years of 2008, 2009 and 2010 did they manage to get the points in Tiger country.

Greig, who played in many of the losses, cannot put a finger on why North Ballarat has such a bad record at the ground. He said there was no obvious reason. He did say though the longer a run of this nature continues, the more difficult it was to change the trend.

Greig said it was certainly not something he or the players had spoken about in the lead-up to Saturday’s clash with Werribee.

The focus has been firmly on grabbing the opportunity of a win, with Werribee in a major slump with seven defeats in a row.

While the Tigers have a full alignment with North Melbourne, injury has severely impacted on the AFL presence in their line-up. Joel Tippett, Sam Durdin and Robin Nahas are the only Kangaroo-listed players on field for Werribee in the game who had time with the Roosters in a part alignment which finished last year.  

Greig believes Werribee could still be on a downer after a 111-point loss to Geelong and if this is the case North Ballarat is ready to pounce.

He says a strong start - something the Roosters have generally been strong in – and being proactive will be important. “We won’t be sitting back. We’ll be going on the attack and see how they react.”