LOCAL FOOTY’S BIGGEST UPSET

EPIC UPSET: ‘Best win I’ve ever been involved in’

PORTARLINGTON coach Jesse Smith has labelled Saturday’s stunning upset win over BFL powerhouse Geelong Amateur as “the best day of my football career”. Two weeks after being towelled up against Newcomb, the lastplaced Demons held on for an emotioncharged 8.10 (58) to 7.10 (52) win, after weathering a late fightback from Ammos.

Portarlington had never beaten Geelong Amateur, dating back to Ammos’ introduction into the BFL in the mid1990s.

With Ammos aiming for their fifth consecutive grand final this year, it serves as one of the greatest local footy upsets in the Geelong region in recent history.

Smith said he had never had a better day in footy than Saturday.

“That includes AFL, VFL, SANFL, I won a flag up at Wangaratta in 2008, this was a better win than that,” the former Carlton footballer said.

“This is the best win I’ve ever been involved in, in regards to any football ever, that’s how big a win it is.

“Just to see the joy in all the supporters’ faces and the players was fantastic.”

While missing a couple of players from their best team, Ammos were still at maximum player points in a side boasting the elite quality of Daniel Lovick, Brad Surkitt, Adam Dono- hue and Jarrod Young.

The Demons led by six points at quarter-time and trailed by three at the main break, before booting four unanswered majors to open up a 23-point buffer at the final change.

“That’s been our goal for the last couple of weeks now, just to be in the game at every break to give us a chance and limit the goals that we get kicked against us,” Smith said.

“We did that at every break, we came in and we were in the game.

“We were just happy to hang in there and give a solid four-quarter effort, which is all I asked from the boys and they definitely did that today.

“Our midfielders, I put the heat on them over the last couple of weeks because we’ve been beaten convincingly in the midfield.

“We’ve got a target of 80plus tackles, which is 20 a quarter, which we exceeded by about 12 today — we ended up with 92 tackles, which is pleasing.”

“We won the contests, won the stoppages and kept getting the ball forward. We were lucky enough to have a couple of tall forwards — Tom Kelly and Lachlan Fearnsides — who stood up today and gave us a couple of targets up forward.”

Smith said the victory would do a world of good for his players.

“Since I took the coaching gig on a couple of years ago, I just wanted to instil belief in the playing group so I think it definitely goes a long way in regards to confidence … that they can put themselves in a winning position and go on and win,” he said. “Hopefully now we have that belief, if we hang in there we can actually win the game.”