JUST one match separates the Ararat Eagles from not only securing an inaugural minor premiership, but a place among the competition\u2019s best home-and-away teams.<\/p>\n
A win this Saturday against Hawkesdale-Macarthur will see the Eagles finish undefeated for the first time in their history and become just the sixth Mininera team do so since 2001 across a full season.<\/p>\n
Should the Eagles complete this feat, they will become the first side since Wickliffe-Lake Bolac in 2005 to finish a season with a percentage above 400.<\/p>\n
Joining the league\u2019s list of Invincibles this weekend would cap off an inspiring rise for the club which stood on the brink of collapse three years ago.<\/p>\n
But as significant as this achievement would be, co-coach Brett Sladdin says the team\u2019s focus will quickly shift towards its finals campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to stop now, it\u2019d be a waste if we went through undefeated and nothing else happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t addressed [going undefeated] and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s something we will.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not too bad at the moment. We\u2019ll hopefully get the week off next week and if there are blokes that are sore that will be good for them, but I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll do anything different to the rest of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
With last year\u2019s finals series was cancelled, the Eagles will make their first appearance in the Mininera finals series since joining the competition in 2011.<\/p>\n
Success at the club this season has not been limited to the senior football team, with the reserves and several netball sides all qualifying for finals in their respective competitions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just the senior team but the reserves are in the finals for the first time in a while. There are three-or-four netball teams that are up there as well, so there\u2019ll be plenty of people about the place over the next few weeks,\u201d Sladdin said<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t make finals at all when I was at the club in the Lexton Plains league. This is the best senior season the club has had and hopefully it keeps going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JUST one match separates the Ararat Eagles from not only securing an inaugural minor premiership, but a place among the competition\u2019s best home-and-away teams. A win this Saturday against Hawkesdale-Macarthur will see the Eagles finish undefeated for the first time in their history and become just the sixth Mininera team do so since 2001 across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"History Beckons for Ararat Eagles","_seopress_titles_desc":"JUST one match separates the Ararat Eagles from not only securing an inaugural minor premiership, but a place among the competition\u2019s best home-and-away teams.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"coauthors":[38],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/aa-backpage-eagles-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-mf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1379"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}