Craigieburn’s focus on wanting to play some good football has taken it all the way to an Essendon District Football League division 1 finals series.
Not that long ago, the Eagles were in the relegation battle and struggling to put any scoreboard pressure on.
With coach Shane Jacobs stepping away as well, things weren’t looking great for the Eagles.
The Eagles won five of their past seven games, losing to the top two sides, to set an easy equation heading into the final round.
A win against Avondale Heights would see the Eagles play finals. A loss would mean they would have to rely on other results.
The Eagles made certain of it, with a 12.16 (88)-7.11 (53) win against Avondale Heights.
In the end, even if the Eagles had lost they would have still played finals.
Eagles football manager Jason Andrews said it’s a pretty crazy situation.
“It’s been really good,” he said. “We started with a mission five or six weeks ago to play some good footy and see what we can do.
“It’s so good to see. It’s been a massive turnaround and the group just want to go out and play a hard exciting brand of footy.”
Andrews said the coaching group had tried to keep the playing group calm and focused on just playing footy and not worrying about what might happen.
“We’ve been taking it each week at a time,” he said. “We had a lot of young kids who played in our under-18 grand final last year.
“They are all doing really well.”
While the Eagles needed a win to play finals, Avondale Heights entered Saturday’s match needing to win to make sure of a double chance.
Scores were level at quarter time before the Eagles took a 16 point lead into half time.
The Eagles defence which has been their strength all season then kept Avondale Heights goalless in the third quarter as they increased the lead to 27 points at the last break.
The Eagles finished off strongly to seal the 12.16 (88)-7.11 (53) win.
Andrews said they felt in control throughout the game.
“They kicked the first goal of the game and we then got on top after that,” he said. “We were never in danger and we played the way that we wanted to play.
“We had nearly 30 scoring shots which is really good.”
Tadhg Boyle kicked four goals for the Eagles.
Benjamin Radford, Sammy Laffan and Jai Robinson were named the Eagles best.
The Eagles will face Avondale Heights for a second straight week, this time in an elimination final on Sunday.
Andrews said nothing changes for them.
“Anything can happen,” he said. “We walked off the field and said see you next week.
“Like us they would have picked up a few things they will do differently and we will have to prepare for that.”
In other results,Tullamarine and Roxburgh Park finished with losses to West Coburg and St Albans respectively.
