MINOR premiers Old Collegians are hoping for good news after star defender Jodie Maybery went down with an ankle injury on Saturday.
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Maybery was hurt when she landed awkwardly in the second quarter of the Warriors’ 54-36 away win over Merrivale.
Early diagnoses ranged from a twisted to dislocated ankle, with a definitive call on the damage to be made once swelling goes down in the coming days.
The injury to Maybery was the only low point in an otherwise memorable day for the Warriors.
The win meant they have ploughed their way through the 2014 home-and-away season undefeated and as clear favourites to win back-to- back premierships.
The game against Merrivale was one of the biggest challenges for the season, as the Tigers brought strong form into the contest.
But it didn’t take the Warriors long to take charge of the game as they flew out to a 15-4 lead by quarter-time.
The injury to Maybery slowed their progress and late in the second quarter the Tigers had reduced the margin to two goals.
But from that point the Warriors slowly began to steal back the ascendancy to lead 24-17 at half-time and 36-30 by the last break.
They finished the job off with an 18-6 last quarter.
Old Collegians coach Lisa Arundell said the star goal scoring duo of Steph Townsend and Sophie Ballinger were brilliant.
“Steph shot 45 goals at 88 per cent accuracy, which was a brilliant performance, and Sophie worked tirelessly to feed the ball in,” Arundell said.
“We knew Merrivale were going to be tough. They had claimed a few top-five scalps over the last few weeks, so we had to come out hard and get a good start.
“It is nice to finish the season unbeaten but really it doesn’t mean much if we don’t finish the job off in the finals, so we still have a lot of work to do.”
While the Warriors have a well-deserved week off in the first round of finals, Merrivale faces an elimination final showdown with Kolora-Noorat.
The Tigers have some good form behind them against the Power, having defeated them by five goals in round 10 and 11 goals in round 12.
Despite this good record, Merrivale coach Tania Ross said both teams would start on level footing.
“We know we can beat Kolora-Noorat but finals are a totally different game to the home-and-away season,” Ross said.
“We will look at how we played when we did beat them, but really, both teams are playing a lot differently to when we last met, so it all starts again this week.”