THE 2022 season ended on Sunday for Myrtleford's senior footballers, following a 12.5 (77) to 14.15 (99) loss at the hands of Wangaratta Rovers at the Albury Sports Ground.
The first quarter of the elimination final was an even affair, with Rovers up by five points at the first break, but soon accelerated to lead the Saints by 27 points by the half.
Myrtleford couldn't limit the Rovers' leg speed and ball movement up the ground, and repeated forward 50 entries battered the Saints defensive unit.
Momentum continued against Myrtleford until the final quarter, where a six–goal streak gave the Saints a look at victory, but in the end time simply ran out.
"We're disappointed, there's no sugar–coating it, we just didn't play good enough for long enough," Myrtleford co–coach Dawson Simpson said.
"It's a bit of a heartbreaker with the fact that we still felt like we had more to give and we just weren't able to do it on the day.
"We knew we didn't necessarily want to get into a shootout with Rovers, because they're a high–calibre team that likes to move the ball quickly, and we wanted to be able to slow their ball movement down which we weren't able to do.
"The boys are disappointed, and it's a hard way to go out and finish the season when you feel like you've got so much left to give."
Several Saints stood up and performed well, including co–captain and 150 gamer, Mitch Dalbosco.
"There were a few standout performances, Malachi Owers was probably our best player on the day," Simpson said.
"He's been building form for the last two or three weeks, he's very clean, he attacked the ball hard, he was aggressive with his tackles, he kicked a few goals – he was just at the intensity required for a final, which was really pleasing.
"Callum Crisp in the ruck was quite good, and our wingers were pretty good in Brody Ricardi, Riley Bouker and Kurt Aylett."
With the season over, Simpson and the rest of the playing and coaching group will take some time to reset and aim for a bigger season 2023.
"We finished fifth, and that's probably exactly how we've seen it – we'd win a couple, lose a couple, win a couple, lose a couple," he said.
"We probably feel like we've underachieved in a sense that what we came out to achieve was a top three finish and a premiership.
"There's obviously a lot of hurt amongst the group at the moment with bowing out, but at the same time there's a lot of upside for the future.
"There's some really good young players in the side who've come a long way this year, we're excited for the years to come.
"Next year's obviously going to be a very big year for the footy club, we've got to get back to work and try and improve and get back after it – you've got to stay around the mark for a few years to get success, so we don't want to drop away, we want to keep knocking on t...
