THOMSON JUST ONE WIN FROM GLORY

FOUR quarters more. That’s all that sits between Thomson and back-to-back GDFL flags.

Four quarters of uncompromising footy. Four quarters of Thomson footy.

Four more quarters of the same footy the city Tigers rolled out to collect a comfortable 44point semi-final win over Bannockburn at The Gordon TAFE Oval on Saturday.

That was the message delivered by co-coach Reece Holwell to his players in the rooms moments after Thomson earnt direct passage into the season decider courtesy of the 11.11 (77) to 4.9 (33) victory over the country Tigers.

Holwell and his co-coach Brent Taylor now have two weeks to fine-tune their team’s premiership defence. It is time Holwell promises they won’t take lightly.

“It’s good. We can’t take the foot off the pedal. We know we have got one more big effort left in us,” Holwell said of making the grand final.

“We will train business as usual, two nights this week and then we will have a good hit-out.

“We will try and get a bigger oval somewhere to try and get some run and spread to simulate this ground as well.”

In a low-scoring game with the wind favouring the Buckley’s end of the ground, Bannockburn failed the make the most of the scoring end in the opening quarter.

It opened the door up for the city Tigers, who booted 3.6 to 0.2 in the second term.

Bannockburn edged its way back into the contest after the main break, breathing life into the game with a couple of quick goals to slash the margin as Thomson struggled to find a target moving in the forward half.

Despite being 18 points clear at three-quarter time, Taylor blasted his team for its lack of tackle pressure. The city Tigers responded in the fourth, kicking away to an easy 44-point win.

“We talked about the pressure (of being the team to beat) and we talked about being that side where everyone is looking at us and sides are coming into it playing against us with nothing to lose,” Holwell said.

“I think that first quarter, they definitely came out to play and it probably took us a little bit to adjust to the big ground and the conditions.

“And the week off, we weren’t flat, I just don’t think we were on top of our game. Half way through the first quarter we definitely found our groove.

“In the third quarter, we only had six tackles and we rate ourselves on getting 20 tackles a quarter, so that was a little bit of a fade there.

“That was (us) probably trying to play outside footy a little bit. We know finals footy, you’ve got to win the contested stuff.”