Ammos’ grand defence

BFL GRAND FINAL

GEELONG Amateur reserves coach John Chapman hailed his side’s unflinching defence after it secured the twos flag on Saturday, beating Modewarre 13.9 (87) to 6.2 (38).

Down by nine points at the first break, Ammos completely dominated after quarter-time, inspired by the performances of Liam Cogan and Cameron Young.

After finishing second on the ladder, Ammos was the team of the finals after unbeaten ladder leader Torquay exited in straight sets.

Tom Balding kicked three goals in the 49-point win, while Amateur’s rock-solid backline meant the side conceded only three goals in the final three quarters.

“In the first 15 minutes I felt like we were a bit panicky,” Chapman said. “Obviously, grand final footy, it’s very intense hype. I felt once we calmed and became patient we started to move the footy a lot better.

“Our back six have been super all year. Every week we ask them to do a job, they’ve restricted teams to scoring below 50 points.

“We can’t fault them, they’ve been super this year, really super.

“Modewarre have been a great pressure team all year, they’ve really loved contested footy.

“We just felt like we really wanted to match them in those areas and I thought we executed it really well in all four quarters.”

Warriors’ big man Marcus Overman was outstanding for his side, finishing with two goals.

Young, emergency for the senior grand final, edged out Cogan for the best-on-ground medal after a typically strong performance through the midfield.

“We were awesome,” Young said. “As a group of 23 blokes we knew what we had to do and everyone played their role well.

“Modewarre came out firing and it was really good to see everyone fight back really hard.

“Our key was to play man-on-man and beat the opponent.

“As an individual, that was my role and everyone else did it well as well.”