THE Nor-West Jets have moved to within one win of the AFL Sydney third division grand final, after a come from behind win over the Campbelltown Blues at the weekend.
The Jets won 14.14-98 to 12.4-76.
The Jets put on nearly 50 points in the third quarter at the weekend to chase down a Blues side which, at least early on, looked a certainty to win the match.
Jets assistant coach Michael Gray said the Blues were all over the Jets in the first half of the match.
“It was a bit of a slow start for us. We got jumped early. They were pretty clean with their ball movement and we just couldn't find the ball early on,” he said.
“It was a bit of a struggle really. We defended well but couldn't find our way to the goal.”
The half time score saw the Blues lead 8.3-51 to 3.4-22.
Gray said a half time speech to fire up the team did the trick, along with a few positional changes, with the Jets coming out in the third quarter, and taking the lead.
“Once we started getting the ball out of the centre, the score started piling on,” he said.
“We got ahead by three quarter and came home strongly in the final quarter.
“We were winning one on ones all over the ground after half time. Everything seemed to bounce our way in the third quarter.”
The win sees the Jets play the Wollondilly Knights in the preliminary final.
It will be the third clash between the two teams in five weeks, after a late regular season match up, and an elimination final game.
Gray said despite the elimination final loss to the Knights, the regular season win two weeks earlier had given the team plenty of confidence.
“We were beaten under the lights in the final a few weeks ago,” he said.
“We lost a few players in the second half and were down to 17 players in the third quarter and they kicked a lot of goals to blow the score out.”
Gray said the Jets had a clean health bill this weekend, and would field, in his opinion, the strongest side they had all season.
“Injury wise we are pretty good. We had a couple of guys have a few bumps and bruises on the weekend but they should be fine,” he said.
“The side we are going to put in this week is pretty close to one of the best we've had all year.”
Gray said it would be an entertaining game.
“We are two sides who play very different styles of footy,” he said.
‘We set ourselves the goal of making the grand final and we're one win off and we want to break into our first grand final in quite a while.”
The match is at 6pm on Sunday at Henson Park.