Thomson pays for tough win
THOMSON has paid a high price for its do-or-die win over Geelong West Giants, with former NEAFL ballwinner Troy Fenyvesi suffering a knee injury.
Fenyvesi, who won the Don Cole Medal for Modewarre last year as the BFL’s best reserves player, left the field before halftime and was forced to watch on with non-playing coach Brent Taylor.
“Troy didn’t come in with an injury as such but he just landed a bit funny and then he couldn’t extend or move it (his knee),” Taylor said after t he Tigers moved into next week’s preliminary final with a workmanlike 25-point win.
“How well that pulls up, we don’t know, but we’ll hope he can get up. If he can’t get up, there’s five or six there that can do the job.”
The injury was the only blemish for the Tigers, who kicked nine of the final 13 goals of the game to underline the game plan of recently named GDFL Team of the Year coaches Taylor and Reece Holwell.
Thomson has now booked a place in its first preliminary final since 2012.
“The win today was good as well because we would have been terribly disappointed as a group if we lost,” Taylor said.
“For 2½ quarters it was a really good contest. No team had space and we just couldn’t score in that second term as a result of their pressure.
“We knew it wasn’t over in that last quarter either, so we were happy to finish it off.”
Thomson was without Jakob Kiddle (head knock), yet key forward Jared Matheson, who hobbled off with an ankle injury only eight days earlier, kicked four goals yesterday.
“This (next week’s preliminary final against Bell Post Hill) will be a massive challenge,” Taylor said.
“You can write them off at your will, everyone is saying that they are getting old, but that’s simply not true.
“They have good footballers on every line and you can’t write them off because their same core players know this ground, so by no means have we written them off.
“We came hard at them late but we just have to be better early.”