PORT Fairy coach Dan Nicholson believes the Seagulls can respond from their heartbreaking preliminary final defeat to Koroit and be a contender in 2019.
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The midfielder-forward, who carried a leg injury into the match, said the Seagulls were committed to ending the club’s premiership drought, which will now extend into a 61st season.
“I signed on months ago, so I am not going anywhere,” he said after their six-point loss to the Saints.
“I think 90-95 per cent of our list has already re-signed so they’ve bought right in, all the way through to our juniors.
“There was a signing night for the under 18s and every one of them signed that night so the buy-in from the players has been outstanding.”
Port Fairy had the aid of a breeze in a wind-affected match, kicking the first four goals.
But Koroit booted five with the aid of the howling gale at Friendly Societies’ Park in the second term to be five points clear at half-time.
The Seagulls could only manage two with the breeze in the third term, giving the Saints the advantage heading into the fourth quarter.
No goals were kicked the Port Fairy end of the ground.
“Eighty per cent of the game was played in a 50-metre radius, so it was never going to make for pretty footy or nice footy to watch,” Nicholson said.
“It is a pretty disappointing result. We got off to a pretty good start but we probably let the foot off (the pedal) in the second quarter, in the last five or 10 minutes. We let ourselves down there.”
Defender Dylan Herbertson “might have broken one of the bones in his wrist”.