Nowra 15.19 (109)

Port Kembla 10.4 (64)

THE 2008 South Coast AFL season has come to an end for the Nowra Blues, with the under-strength side claiming a substantial victory over Port Kembla at West Street Oval.

Their season has come to a close before the semis, a disappointing outcome for the team and coach Murray Mortimer.

“It is disappointing, we had big hopes at the end of last year,” Mortimer said.

“We thought that with the maturity of the younger players we’d have a good side.”

The first half of the match saw Nowra dominate, running off the field at half-time well ahead of Port Kembla.

“We were well ahead at the end of half-time, 60-8. But we let them back into the game in the third quarter,” Mortimer said.

“We played some players who were probably no quite ready for senior footballing, all season we’ve been relying on young kids who were 17 years.

“It’s good for them, it’s a good challenge and it shows them they can cope at that standard of competition.

“We were down a couple of normal senior footballers. It’s been a problem all season, we’ve had some major injuries throughout the year and in the second half of the year we were significantly affected.

“But it was good to finish the year off with a win.”

Goal kickers for the Blues were Matt Brunton 7, Jordan Pearson 4, Jake Barber 2, Ashley Balazic 1 and Ashley Bilsborough 1.

Best players on the day were Brunton, Kyle Prout, Pearson and Barber.