FOOTBALL
ELECTION weekend dictated Albion to be the best Brimbank candidate in the running for the Western Region Football League division 1 title.
The Cats bared their claws to leave the finals campaign of local rivals Sunshine Kangaroos teetering on the brink with a comfortable 27-point win at JK Grant Reserve in Altona on Saturday.
Cats coach Paul Harrison was ecstatic with a win over a team he called a "big scalp".
"I thought we played like the second top side should and beat them fairly comfortably," he said.
"When the game was there to be won we played all over the top of them."
The Cats imposed themselves on the contest from the outset.
Their unwavering will to obtain first use of the ball at the clearances and keep up their defensive pressure in the forward half of the ground was a feature.
"They were the areas we focused on," Harrison said.
The Cats went to quarter-time with a 16-point lead with the aid of a strong breeze.
The Kangaroos were on the back foot from the opening minutes when key man Keegan Powell went off with a game-ending injury.
The Cats took advantage, putting the Kangaroos defence under a mountain of pressure with Sam Stephens and Shaydon Bloomfield featuring prominently.
Stephens, a teenage sensation still eligible for the under-18s, was superb in a best-on-ground performance across half-forward.
With the Cats holding a three-goal buffer out of the half-time break, the rising star picked up the ball tight on the boundary and booted an amazing momentum-lifting goal to kick-start a six-goal-to-zip third term. "That opened the floodgates a bit," Harrison said.
"It was a miraculous one from the boundary line to give us some momentum.
"It was a timely goal and it capped off a great game for him."
The Cats, inspired by the midfield work of Marcus Smith, Jayson Watts and ruckman James Philpot, blew the margin out to 10 goals at one point.
That was when they "turned off" in the words of Harrison.
The Kangaroos plastered over the cracks with a six-goal-to-one final term.
Perhaps the Cats had their minds elsewhere? A second semi-final meeting with minor premiers Spotswood will do that to you.
The experts have predicted a one-horse race to the premiership.
Harrison will relish the chance to lead his underdogs on the weekend.
"We'll give a good account of ourselves," he said.
The Kangaroos' attention turns to a cut-throat semi-final with either StAlbans or Altona.
■Albanvale will have to make use of its double chance in the division 2 finals after it was blown out of the water by North Footscray in a one-sided affair at Crofts Reserve, Altona North, on Saturday.
The Cobras managed only three goals in the game and were annihilated by 89 points.
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