Seymour out of GVL finals after last quarter blast from Euroa

In a similar fashion to their elimination final win over Mooroopna, the Magpies blitzed their opponents with a pulsating 6.3 fourth quarter.

A worrying ankle injury to superstar midfielder Will Hayes saw the leading contender for next week’s Morrison Medal finish the match at three-quarter time with ice strapped to his ankle and his side in front by 11 points.

The Lions looked to capitalise after trailing by a slim margin for the majority of the first three quarters.

Seymour coach Ben Davey changed things in the final spell.

From the outset, play went Euroa’s way as livewire Jett Trotter again injected himself into the contest and made something out of nothing to boot the opening goal of the final term thanks to a 50m running bomb.

An instant reply by Seymour saw the margin cut back to 10 points, however that would be the final time the Lions sniffed victory as Euroa piled on five of the next eight goals.

Davey and the Seymour side were left wondering what could have been after their highly anticipated finals series came to an abrupt end.

“You definitely don’t go into these ones thinking that you are going to lose,” Davey said.

“All credit to Euroa, they were very good today.

“It was a real contest for a lot of the game, and then we tried to roll the dice a bit to get the win and they capitalised on that.

“Then it gets harder from there. You have to roll the dice again and again roll the dice.”

Davey said captain Jack O’Sullivan, Ben Rigoni and Tom O’Sullivan were good for the Lions.

“(It was) really his first game today in the midfield for us,” he said of Tom O’Sullivan.

“He was pretty good at that and (then) he got a really heavy knock.

“It probably took a bit out of him.

“Rory (Scopel) was running around as well.

“The midfield was really good today, but you’ve gotta be stronger for longer, and Euroa were.

“They don’t give them to you. Finals wins are so hard.

“We’ve come in, given ourselves every chance finishing second and go out in straight sets, so that’s a bitter pill to swallow.

“You’ve gotta be happy that you got the chance to do it, but you’ve gotta be not happy at the end.

“You want to get back there and hope that experience helps you next time.

“They’re a young group and they’re very competitive.

“That’s the one thing: they won’t give in.”

Across the park in the Euroa sheds, coach Scott Rowan could not have been more pleased with his side’s third quarter performance.

“I think that’s finals footy to a tee. There are no bad teams in this league and the top six is so even,” Rowan said.

“It’s going to be a grind and it will come down to which sides take their opportunities ... to the boys’ credit they didn’t go away from the task all day which was really pleasing.

“The message at three-quarter time was focus on what we’ve been doing and stick to the plan and we felt pretty confident going into the last.

“I rate Riley Mason as probably top-five hardest players to match up on in the league and Gussy (Marcus) is a bit undersized, but we went the old-fashioned way.

“It was just physical pressure and he managed to have a really good result and nullified Riley’s influence on the game and we saw last week how dangerous he can be.”

Seymour captain Jack O’Sullivan worked tirelessly all day and booted three majors, while fellow onballer Ben Rigoni was his usual consistent self.

The VFL talent hit the scoreboard with two goals.

Former AFL player Michael Hartley, who will depart to coach Castlemaine in 2024, finished his career at the Lions with two majors.