By Marcus Uhe
Belief is building at Berwick Springs after a breakthrough come-from-behind win over Emerald.
The Bombers got the better of the Titans on two previous occasions this year but the Titans turned the tables, sneaking home by three points, 15.13 103 to 15.10 100.
Hayden Stagg delivered the telling blow for Berwick Springs who trailed by 19 points early in the last quarter before kicking three of the final four goals of the contest.
Down by three points with five minutes remaining, Tom Nelson intercepted an Emerald forward thrust and found Stagg on the far wing.
Stagg then kicked to Braydn Hoewel at half-forward and ran past his target for a handball receive.
Off just a handful of steps from the edge of the centre square, he let fly with a long bomb to an unguarded goal square as Ty Ellison watched it bounce through with a pair of Emerald defenders in his wake.
It left the Titans with a tense final five minutes to negotiate, but scenario training on the track proved vital, clinging on for an impressive victory as the first side to beat the Bombers at Chandler Reserve this year.
Brodie Worland’s goal-saving tackle deep into time-on on Lachlan Crnogorac at centre-half-back typified Benstead’s theme of the afternoon, with the most recent fixture between the two, in which Emerald kicked five-goals-to-one in the final term, at the forefront of the coach’s mind.
“I reminded the boys of (the last game) at three-quarter-time and I felt like we were starting to get the momentum,” Benstead said.
“We kicked the last couple of goals, and then we could either rest on our laurels, or we could really hunt them, and that was our theme of the day; to hunt them.
“I thought the boys did that in the last quarter, they were really composed and played a brand of footy that’s suggested they wanted the result.
“We were 36 points down halfway through the third quarter and it gives you a lot of belief and trust that if you can come back from that position, it says a lot for us moving forward.”
With wins over likely finalists in the last two outings, Benstead feels the group is peaking at the critical time of the year, and would welcome another clash with the Bombers in September.
“Last year we said that it felt like we peaked around round 17-18 and we really worked our training loads and player management to play our best football at this time of the year,” he said.
“We felt like, after the Seville game that we lost, we didn’t rest on training.
“We trained harder, and last year we might have taken a step back.
“But now we’ve really built up our training and we’re in a really good position to finish the year.
“We’ve had some really good battles and we feel like we’ve got a really good rivalry with them.
“We beat them last year in the finals in a seesawing game and they’ve had us twice this year, so you just expect a big game.
“We know that we’ll meet them again and it’ll just be a case of ‘start again’.
“It gives me confidence and it gives the players belief, and I think that means a lot going into finals.”
Stagg, Riley Hillman and Daniel Ousley were all standouts for Berwick Springs, Ousley’s clearance work particularly prevalent in the final term.
For the Bombers, Callum White and David Johnson kicked five goals each, Mitchell Thomas and Joshua Webb among their primary contributors.
At Seville, Healesville’s one-point upset of the Blues has thrown a cat amongst the pigeons in the lower half of the bottom four.
With two tough fixtures to come, Seville is now at risk of falling out of the top four, with Healesville and Officer set to benefit.
Officer travel to Seville on Saturday in a clash that may decide fourth place.
