Just one win separates second-placed Belmont Lions and sixth-placed North Geelong, which faces a tough run home.
After 10th-placed Thomson this week, the Magpies play five teams still in finals contention, although they won’t take the Tigers lightly after they pushed Inverleigh all the way on Saturday 4 July.
North Geelong co-coach Keegan Carr isn’t looking too far ahead, though.
“It’s going to be a really interesting end to the season,” he said.
“You just have to beat who you need to beat on that weekend and see what happens at five o’clock when all the other results come through.
“There’s no point worrying about what everyone else is doing. You just have to worry about what you’re doing.”
The Pies defeated Bannockburn by 11 points on Saturday in what was an important four points. When Henry Hawker put Banno to within 10 points at the 26-minute mark, North Geelong was able to hang on despite a lengthy injury list.
“Before the game, we were not really interested in who’s not playing because we had full confidence in the guys that were playing, that they could come in and play their role,” Carr said.
“We’ve been about system over personnel for the last two and a half years, and that’s kind of how we like to go about things. It’s not about who’s there and who’s not there, it’s if we play the way we want to play, it doesn’t matter who’s playing.”
Carr said he and co-coach Peter Riccardi decided against putting a player behind the ball during the final few minutes.
“We did speak about throwing one behind the ball if situations arose and we knew Bannockburn were going to come hard and they probably came a lot earlier than what we planned,” he said.
“We just backed our guys in to do the job and thankfully we got that late goal that just gave us that little bit of extra breathing room.”
Promising news from Osborne Park is that Osca Riccardi is back running after a bad ankle injury that has sidelined him since round 9.
Riccardi won’t be back on the field anytime soon, though. He is still expected to be out until the latter stages of the season.
“We’re hoping to get him back a few games before the finals and if we’re good enough to make it,” Carr said.
“He ran all last week and he was probably running a lot more than I thought he was going to run. We’re hoping to get a few back this week, and then we’ll probably, over the course of the next month or so, start getting three or four back each week.
“But that’s everything going to plan. You never know. We thought everyone would be back already and we just kept getting more injuries.”
On Saturday, North Geelong was well served by defender Ben O’Brien, who kept the dangerous Hawker to three goals.
“He’s been amazing,” Carr said.
“Hawker is one of the best forwards in the comp and to probably not lose a one-on-one contest with him, he played a huge role in us winning the game.”
Gun midfielder Rory Desnoy was also outstanding and booted two goals.
“He’s (Desnoy) just a beast,” Carr said.
“Nothing surprises me with him anymore. He just loves the contest. I think the conditions really played into his hands, and he’s big and he’s strong. He can go forward if we need him to go forward and give us a different look.”
