Collendina, Armstrong Creek accept finals fate

THE two clubs that had seasons resuscitated for a few days during the BPCA fight saga have accepted they didn’t deserve to play in the Dgrade finals.

When initial findings were handed down by the BPCA on Friday night into the brawl between Portarlington and Queenscliff, both clubs were banned from the Dgrade finals series.

That meant Armstrong Creek and Collendina jumped into the top four, only for that call to be reversed during Monday night’s marathon tribunal hearing.

Armstrong Creek president Barry Mills said the Titans side did get a boost from the initial news their season would go into finals and went on to beat thirdplaced Barwon Heads on Saturday.

“The guys were resigned to the fact they weren’t going to play finals and when we got an email saying they were playing, that got them a little bit more excited,” Mills said. “It’s disappointing the way it finished but they weren’t good enough to get into the finals to start so you have to look at it with real perspective that their season should have been over last week and they got a couple more days thinking it was still going.”

The D-grade Armstrong Creek side would have been the third out of three at the club to reach finals.

At Collendina, none of the four senior teams made it to finals.

Training was due to be ceased this week and when the Cobras found out the bottom division side would be catapulted into the finals plans were made for one more hit.

But co-coach Nathan Walter said the club accepted the backflip.

“We had our D-grade players on standby,” he said.

“We didn’t really earn our spot throughout the (season) albeit we played some good cricket and had some good performances but we didn’t win enough games.”