BFNL 2023: Injury to Roosters veteran sours finals breakthrough | Finals Week 1

Clay Jenkins was injured in the closing minutes on Sunday.

Play was stopped as the North Ballarat veteran was stretchered off Eastern Oval.

"It is (heartbreaking), Clay is what we're all about at North," McCartney said.

"He's such a hard-working, resilient, humble person and he's North Ballarat through and through.

"It's a tough game footy, sometimes your moment comes in a good way and sometimes in a bad way but we'll stand by him and support him."

The Roosters recovered from an early three-goal deficit to storm home against Redan and set up a semi-final clash against Darley as Jamie Quick starred with five goals.

Quick was at his crowd-stirring best, frequently popping up when his side needed him the most, while Riley Polkinghorne was instrumental through the midfield.

Redan started the game on fire, racing out to an impressive lead as the Lions made the most of their opportunities in front of goal.

North Ballarat was up for the challenge however, eventually stringing together quick goals in the third term to snatch the lead.

From there, it was all North Ballarat as Brendan McCartney's side looks ahead to a double chance opportunity against the Devils, who they beat earlier in the season.

"All throughout the game we just kept grinding away and as the game went on we won more and more of those critical contests," McCartney said.

"Our behaviour was good, we were still playing the way we wanted but Redan were quite clinical, they were hard to stop early."

McCartney said he was impressed by his senior players on Sunday.

"I thought our older players carried themselves really well," McCartney said.

"When we needed to lift they lifted and Riley Polkinghorne was the one midfielder who kept powering on.

"The young blokes also stepped up, when their moment came they all took it."

The Roosters face Darley on Saturday while it is season over for Gary Learmonth's side, who lived up to their pre-season expectations and played finals football.

Learmonth said he was "pretty flat" following the elimination final heartbreak.

"We showed that we were good enough but we dropped off for that 10 minutes and North were able to take their chances," he said.

"It is frustrating, I think we are as good as North we just couldn't hold that consistency."

North Ballarat's semi-final against Darley is currently fixtured for City Oval.

North Ballarat 11.11 (70) d Redan 9.6 (60)

GOALS: North Ballarat: J.Quick 5, W.Quinlan 2, D.McGuigan 1, J.Riding 1, R.Polkinghorne 1, E.Lamb 1; Redan: G.Bell 1, R.Gunsser 1, L.McLean 1, D.Mathews 1, L.Barnes 1, D.Phillips 1, D.Murphy 1

East Point's miracle run continued as the Roos stunned Sebastopol in Saturday's elimination final, walking away with a three-goal victory.

The sixth-placed Roos snuck into finals at the eleventh hour and now find themselves one of four sides remaining having taken down third-placed Sebastopol.

East Point led by 29 points at halftime before the Burra stormed home in the final term in a nail-biting finish.

Sebastopol drew level with just five minutes remaining as a three-goal quarter time deficit was quickly erased, before East Point playing coach Jackson Merrett stood up when his side needed him the most.

Merrett slotted a set shot in front of the Roos faithful to regain a six-point lead, but the Roos were not done yet.

Young gun Strahan Robinson slotted his third major before Bryson McDougall kicked the Roos out to a three-goal advantage and a famous elimination final win.

Merrett was full of praise for his group following the Eastern Oval triumph.

"Being a young side you've really got to instil that belief in the playing group," Merrett said.

"Our best is good enough and we know if we stick to our process it's going to keep us in games as it did last week against North Ballarat."

The playing coach said he was impressed with his group's ability to regain composure after Sebastopol fought back.

East Point advances to play Melton at City Oval next week with Merrett noting it will be a hard-fought contest.

"Melton has been the benchmark for the last three or four years so it'll be a really good challenge," he said.

"We'll review and see what areas we can improve on from the last couple of times we've played them.

For Sebastopol, it is an all-too-soon ending to a season that was filled with potential.

The Burra enjoyed more scoring shots (26 to 24) but co-coach Michael Columbro noted missed opportunities early on evidently cost his side.

"East Point jumped us hard, we were chasing pretty hard and had plenty of opportunities but just didn't capitalise," Columbro said.

"We just didn't get close quickly enough to put any sort of scoreboard pressure on them but our boys fought all the way to the end.

"I'm really proud of their effort and to almost take it away from them."

It was Sebastopol's first loss to East Point since the 2019 BFNL grand final.

East Point 4.6 8.7 9.8 13.11 (89)

Sebastopol 1.5 3.8 5.14 9.17 (71)

GOALS: East Point: B.McDougall 3, S.Robinson 3, J.Jeffrey 3, B.Whittaker 1, S.Tung 1, L.Canny 1, J.Merrett 1; Sebastopol: D.Widgery 2, T.Hutt 2, L.Cassidy 1, J.Hill 1, T.Lockyer 1, J.Keeble 1, J.Fletcher 1

BEST: East Point: J.Dodd, J.Van Meel, L.Canny, J.Taylor, B.McDougall, J.Jeffrey; Sebastopol: L.Cassidy, T.Lockyer, H.Papst, T.Hutt, J.Dahlhaus, J.Fletcher

Darley is one win away from a BFNL grand final appearance after enjoying a 14-point qualifying final win against reigning premier Melton on Saturday.

The Devils boasted 23 scoring shots to 14 in the Maddingley Park affair as they turn their attention to North Ballarat.

It was a back-and-forth contest to start, with Dan Jordan's side holding a slim one-point halftime advantage.

The Devils then piled on five goals to two in the third quarter to escape out to a 21-point lead.

"I thought we took a little bit of time to build into it but after quarter time the game looked a bit more on our terms," Jordan said.

"The boys executed the plan we had for Melton pretty well, they really knuckled down and had some good intensity around the footy."

Darley has now recorded three wins against Melton this season and remains the only side to defeat the minor premiers this year.

Jordan said his side "reset" before Saturday's contest, not getting caught up in the perfect 3-0 record.

Saturday's win was made all the more impressive with Darley down two rotations on the bench.

Blake Colley injured his hamstring while Andrew Azzopardi was sidelined following a heavy knock to the ribcage.

Billy Myers kicked a team-high three goals with Brett Bewley again at his best with two majors to his name.

Melton plays East Point in a semi final while Darley hosts North Ballarat.

Darley 2.1 6.3 11.5 13.10 (88)

Melton 3.2 6.2 8.2 12.2 (74)

GOALS: Darley: B.Myers 3, D.Leonard 2, W.Johnson 2, B.Bewley 2, R.Matricardi 1, D.Bishop 1, H.Inglis 1, J.Cadman 1; Melton: K.Borg 4, B.Payne 2, R.Davis 2, J.Kight 2, B.Sullivan 1, R.Carter 1

BEST: Darley: B.Bewley, L.Baker, D.Leonard, L.Spiteri, H.Inglis, B.Young; Melton: K.Borg, A.Monitto, B.Souter, J.Walker, L.Heaney, L.Phillips

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