After a sluggish start, Lancaster got its act together in the second quarter and gradually dismantled its rival, minor premier Nagambie, by 65 points in an emphatic win to claim back-to-back flags and the ninth in the club’s history.
It could have been a hat-trick of flags with COVID-19 ending its bid to win the 2021 flag after it had won all 11 games before the season was terminated.
Nagambie took it to Lancaster in the first quarter with numbers at the ball and committed tackling but once the Wombat machine went up a few cogs it was mainly one-way traffic.
After taking 22 minutes before the inspirational Zac Cerrone slotted Lancaster’s first goal of the match the Wombats kicked five second-quarter goals, the first four in succession, to the Lakers’ one to take a handy 31-point lead into the major break.
Lancaster then produced a flag-winning third term with a burst of four unanswered goals and five for the quarter after Nagambie’s Jonathan Moore had slotted the first goal of the term to give the Lakers a faint hope of a fightback.
For the Wombats Nic Ryan slotted successive goals in this term and Jake Mills also broke the shackles to kick two.
When Lancaster’s midfielders, led by Zac and Tanner Cerrone, Cameron Simpson, Morrie Serra, and big men in Coby O’Neill, Ricky Thomson and Nic Ryan, who all hit the scoreboard, took control, Lancaster was in total command.
The tough, hard-working Simpson collected his second successive grand final umpires award for best on the ground with another dominant display.
Other Wombat midfielders and onballers in Sam Spedding, Sam Vick, Charlie McLay all chipped in to keep the flow and the goal scoring coming for the Wombats.
And Lancaster’s defence, led by Luke Davies, Phil Carroll, Nic McAuliffe and Noah Sewell, rarely gave their opponents any space to cause any major damage.
Tom Barnes and Jonathan Moore looked dangerous at timed for the Lakers in attack.
Another three goals, and seven for the quarter, to Nagambie’s four goals swelled the Wombats’ lead to 41 points at the final change.
Another four goals to two in the last term blew the winning margin out to 64 points.
The Wombats had 10 individual goalkickers for the game with Jake Mills’ three the best individual tally.
Lancaster and Nagambie played one man short for the first half of the last term after an incident on the bell at three-quarter-time.
But this was Lancaster’s day again — the reserves also back-to-back premiers — and senor coach Tom Davies could not have been happier.
‘‘We anticipated they would come at us hard in that first quarter and they did,’’ he said.
“We spoke about it before the game, but more importantly, we absorbed it and once we got our flowing game going I was pretty confident we would win.’’
Davies has marshalled his troops from the sidelines for the latter part of the season after an ACL injury ended his season, but with the club’s depth of talent it has been able to cover his loss, as significant as it was.
Davies is deciding on whether to attempt the hat-trick next year as coach but hinted with a relative young and talented list it may be a job too hard to refuse.
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