Tigers king of the jungle as Lions exit finals

By Adam Miller

Sep 17, 2024

Seymour’s reserves side fell to Rochester by 25 points in Sunday’s preliminary final. Photo by Contributed

Seymour was bundled out of the Goulburn Valley League reserves premiership race on the weekend with a 25-point defeat to Rochester.

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Coming off the back of a 96-point humiliation on home turf against flag favourite Ecucha, the Lions had plenty to prove to themselves and their supporters on Sunday afternoon.

With their sole season match-up in round eight against the Tigers having resulted in a 38-point loss, Seymour went into the semi-final clash at Deakin Reserve in Shepparton as the heavy underdog.

Seymour dominated the opening minutes of the game and should have made Rochester pay on the scoreboard, but did not, which allowed the Tigers to take a nine-point lead into quarter-time thanks to goals from Reed Hocking and Simon Walter.

The Lions finally got their first of the game seven minutes into the second term thanks to Julian Morgan to cut the margin to six, only for the Tigers to strike back moments later through Sean Williams.

Inaccurate Tigers kicking and a late Dale Short major allowed the Lions to be just six points behind at half-time.

To the surprise of everyone, not least themselves, the Lions briefly took the lead six minutes into the third quarter, before Tiger Benjamin Hutchins made the quarter all his.

His 10-minute purple patch saw him slot three majors as the favourites took a 17-point lead into the final change.

Desperate for a chance to redeem themselves on grand final day after last year's shock 13-point loss to Shepparton United, the Lions knew they would need to bring their best football to the last quarter.

Unfortunately, as had been the case for the previous three quarters, every positive Seymour action was copied by a similar Rochester one, who was able to keep the Lions at bay.

Hutchins permanently sunk the Lions' premiership hopes with his fourth major with just seconds to go, giving his side a 25-point win and a date with Echuca for premiership glory.

The back-to-back losses were a disappointing way for Seymour’s finals campaign to end.

It had begun so positively with a 15-point qualifying final victory against Euroa before crashing back down to earth with the 96-point defeat against the Murray Bombers.

Best on in the Lions’ final game of the season were Tayte Lewis, Clayton Salmon, Jonty Mann, Ishaq Ali and Jaxon Lantzke.

With a 10-point defeat in round five, the Tigers have gotten as close as anyone against the undefeated Echuca.

The two sides face off at 11.55am at Deakin Reserve in Shepparton on Sunday, September 22.