Football
20 July, 2026
Saints home in three-point thriller
It was an absolute thriller at Coughlin Park on Saturday in the clash between Horsham Saints and Nhill, with the ladder leaders, the Saints, getting up by just three points.
The Saints led by eight points at the end of the first quarter and a game-high 23 points at half-time, but the Tigers battled their way back into the game and had the advantage heading into the final term, 14.6 (90) to 15.2 (92).
With seven majors kicked in the final quarter, it was the Horsham side who finished more strongly, outscoring their opponent 4.1 to 3.2.
After the win, Saints coach Angus Martin told Wimmera Mallee News not only was the feeling around the Horsham side high at the time but he was also a bit speechless as to where the side were sitting five games out from finals.
"I was not expecting to be where we are, and now we're actually firming," Martin said.
"We're a serious chance here.
"We're not getting ahead of ourselves but we know that we are a serious threat to anyone and we feel like we're winning these close games.
"We're saying to ourselves 'This is belief now', like we've got belief among our group that we can actually cause some impact once we get to finals.
"Finals are a different game and a lot of these blokes haven't played finals for a couple of years, but we feel like we're having a red-hot crack at it now."
Martin said the Saints' first half on Saturday was some of the best footvall he had been part of this year.
He added he would be watching that vision closely when he did the match review.
"I'll probably watch the third quarter extremely closely to see what our deficiencies were there," he said.
Saying he personally had a challenging quarter in the third, Martin said changes needed to be implemented.
"I was getting dominated on and I was a bit angry," he said.
"Gary Davidson and Jaye Macumber calmed me down; we had a chat about what we should do and they raised the idea of me going in the middle.
"I thought 'Well, all right, I'll go in the middle and just see if I can tackle and create something'.
"And I feel like I did impact the contest in there and I think the boys just needed a bit of rev-up.
"Really, they just looked a bit flat at three-quarter-time, but credit to everyone who's a part of our group, they all stood up and played well in that last quarter and dug deep."
The coach said they trained for most situations now and it held them in good stead on Saturday.
"We're training to go fast, go slow," Martin said.
"We're training with the clock running, things like that, to just try to get us ready for when teams are up.
"They're coming hard in that last quarter ... what do we do?
"We have a group here that wants to win and that's all they want to do.
"They want to learn, and it's great to be a part of."
The side had 11 goal scorers on Saturday, with a big spread being a commonality in their recent games.
The coach said Rory Taggert had been brilliant in the forward line recently but apart from him a lot of other players were chipping in with a major or two.
"It means teams can't just clamp down on one," Martin said.
"If they clamp down on one, the other one jumps up, and if they clamp down on him, the other one just jumps up.
"I think that's a really good strength."
Better players included Alexander McRae and Judd Wright for the Saints and Daniel Batson and Josh Ryan for the Tigers.
The highest goal scorers were Wright (with four) and Ryan (with six).