Navarre has advanced to the Maryborough Castlemaine District Football League preliminary finals after an emphatic victory over Harcourt on Saturday.
The Grasshoppers were untroubled in the 22.10.142 to 5.7.37 victory.
The win sends Navarre to its seventh straight MCDFNL preliminary final.
Harcourt showed signs of being able to test the reigning premiers early on. Inaccuracy in front of goal hurt the Lions, as they kicked 1.4 to trail by 21 points at quarter time.
The Grasshoppers showed no mercy after the break, showing why they are the rightful premiership favourites.
They kept Harcourt scoreless to jump out to a 50-point half-time lead.
Navarre assistant coach Matt Newton said it was important for his team to dominate early.
“We hadn’t played Harcourt since round two so we knew they would have improved since then,” he said.
“We wanted to come in at the half-time break keeping them as far away as possible which we did.”
The Grasshoppers continued the onslaught in the second half, including a nine-goal to one final term to blow the margin out over 100 points.
Newton said it was pleasing to see his side control the game.
“It is a bit cliche but we had 22 contributors,” he said.
“Our midfield dominated the play and our forward line did really well to put on lots of pressure.
“At this time of the year it is important to play four good quarters of footy. We really wanted to put the foot down at the end of the game.
“I don’t know if they gave up a bit towards the end but we wanted to really stake our claim.”
Jesse Hannett kicked four goals for Navarre, with four other players kicking three each.
Louis Hannett was named as best on ground for the Grasshoppers.
Navarre will have the week off before playing either Natte Bealiba or Talbot in the preliminary final on Sunday, September 10.
“We had no injuries from the weekend which is great,” Newton said.
“We will get our bodies right over the next couple of days to recover. We’ll have full training on Thursday just like all the other teams that will be playing this week.”
Navarre’s reserves team will play Royal Park in a semi final on Sunday which may feature some senior players.
“We worked our finals eligibility out really well,” Newton said.
“There could be guys going from our team into the reserves, we will just have to wait and see what we can do.”
Carisbrook made their way through to the other preliminary final, easily accounting for Natte Bealiba by 59 points on Saturday.
