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Tigers break losing streak@Normal:At it … Tempers flared in Werribee’s clash with Collingwood at Chi

By Tim Doutré

16th June 2009 11:05:37 AM

WERRIBEE returned to the winner’s list with a spirited 17-point victory against Collingwood on Saturday.

The split-round match saw the Tigers desperate to break a five-game losing streak with sheer determination, getting them over the line on their home deck, 13.15.105 to 13.10.88.

The Collingwood side was a formidable outfit, bolstered by the likes of Anthony Rocca, Paul Medhurst, Ben Johnson, Sean Rusling, Jaxson Barham, Cameron Wood, Dayne Beams and Tyson Goldsack but the Werribee side relished its underdog status.

“The opposition were strong but we played against strong opposition the last five or six weeks,” Werribee coach Simon Atkins said.

“We’ve had five losses on the trot. We wanted to put a halt to that and I was really rapt with the total commitment of the team.”

The visitors to Chirnside Park had a flurry of scoring opportunities early with an experienced forward line put to use, but the accuracy for the black and white was wayward - they kicked 3.6 to the Tigers’ 3.3 to take a marginal lead early.

Both sides fought it out through cold conditions and a muddy midfield to score four goals each in the second term but things heated up just after the half-time siren as both teams engaged in a bit of push and shove.

Atkins admitted he was a little surprised by that.

“I looked at it and said, ‘ah, it will be all right’, so I was actually waiting down in the coach’s room for the players.

“I thought, ‘what’s going on here’, so I walked out of the room and said to someone standing at the door ‘what’s happening’ and he said ‘they’re still into it’. So it was a bit of a shock to me.”

Atkins backed his players to show some physical presence on the field as long as it was under the right circumstances.

“If it’s a bit of false bravado or anything like that I wouldn’t have copped it but it was just about being in the game and the players thought they had to stand up for a couple of issues that happened on the ground.

“I will back them up with that sort of stuff. If it is required I will back the playing group to be able to be able to stand up for themselves.”

Whether the Tigers were fired up after the half-time wrestle or the Magpies losing Sean Rusling in the second term and Brent MacAffer to a knee injury in the third, the hosts looked the better team when the match resumed.

But wasted opportunities were rued and when Collingwood booted three goals on the trot stretching the lead out to 20 points things were looking grim.

The Tigers fought back to have the margin at 13 points at the final change with the game in the balance.

Atkins tried to instil some self-belief into his team in the last break.

“I suppose I just said what I have been saying every week.

“We just got to have some belief in what we do and you can’t do it for one or two quarters.

“I would probably go back to the Box Hill game, which we won, we just got a consistency across the board.

“We used the footy and played to our game plan and we were able to do that and knock Collingwood off their game plan.”

The Tigers with an impressive nine first-year players in the line-up gained some momentum early in the final term and could not be stopped as they booted six goals in the last quarter to storm home.

The win will give the victory-starved side much more than four premiership points going into the break.