Embracing expectation: Cats remain undefeated as young 'warrior' stars

It's a prospect he not only welcomes, but believes will only fuel the belief and confidence as the season wears on.

The Cats remain the only undefeated team in the Warrnambool and District league, knocking their latest challenge off on Saturday in Russells Creek in what proved to be a high-pressure thriller at Mack Oval with plenty of twists and turns, 13.16 (94) to 13.11 (89).

The game looked dead and buried with the Cats soaring out to a five-goal lead midway through the last quarter before the Dylan Herbertson-coached Creek stormed home with the final four goals to nearly pinch an unlikely win.

"I'm really proud of the group, there's belief building amongst the players, I can see it myself," Nowell said.

"What I'm seeing is when we're under pressure we don't fall down and allow that game to slip away.

"There's some really good lessons to take away, especially in that last five, ten minutes. We should have shut the game down and scraped it out.

"But they've done everything I've asked them to do and we take the win. I'm super proud."

Nowell said genuine expectation, something he hadn't experienced in previous years, would come down to "following the same philosophy we've ran with".

"I'm a big believer in just taking it week by week, game by game," he said.

"Next week we've got another big game, another big challenge and if you win four quarters, you win the game.

"This group knows that if we turn up and play our very best football, we're dangerous and we know we can take it up to every team in the competition. Today we did it for three and a bit quarters."

While the Cats brought in some bigger bodies over the off-season, Nowell believes it's the group's balance of youth and experience which had provided a strong platform.

"The older blokes have been great but last year we played four, five of these young lads and while their form may not have warranted selection at times we kept playing them to build them up," he said.

"What we're seeing is now our younger lads step up. I thought our young brigade was fantastic. They took crucial marks at crucial times, young Jackson McLean did some great things late and had three or four possessions out that far side which were crucial.

"And this group really listens to instructions. When we came in at half-time, we were letting them get a lot of handball receives out of the stoppage, so we put a lot of work on shutting that down and we managed to get control of the game. It's a good sign."

Nowell heaped praise on young gun Kade Gordon's role on Creek star Andy McMeel, labelling the 2023 under 18 league best and a fairest a "warrior".

"He'll just go in hard and do what he needs to do, he won the league best and fairest for a reason," he said.

"He was best on ground by a country mile. He's a hard-nosed footy player with a high footy IQ, uses the ball really well.

"This is really his first full year but we played him a lot last year so it's nothing new to him to play senior footy."

Spearhead Robbie Hare was dangerous all day, slotting six to take his tally to 29 for the season already, Zavier Mungean crashed in hard and skipper Brett Hunger was vital with his experience in key moments.

Big man Dylan Burns was a standout for Creek, while emerging youngster Jandamara Chatfield was prominent.

Creek coach Dylan Herbertson said the group needed to play four quarters to challenge the top sides.

"You can't win many games of footy when you're only playing a quarter or so of good footy," he said.

"Against those top teams you have to bring a four-quarter effort and trying to rely on that last little bit.

"To our credit we weren't playing our best but we were still in the contest. Full credit to Allansforfd they rocked up ready to play.

"It's good for the competition I think that's it more than just a two-horse race."