A WIN this weekend will wrap up the minor premiership for the Ararat Rats and see them advance into the second week of finals.<\/p>\n
Ararat sits eight points clear atop the Wimmera competition and, despite having the bye in the final week of the season, will lift its first minor premiership in over 15 years should it defeat the Horsham Demons this weekend.<\/p>\n
Should the Rats win and finish as the minor premier, a quirk in the fixture will see them given a two week rest before their first final.<\/p>\n
Despite failing to kick a goal in the last quarter, the Rats hung on to defeat Minyip-Murtoa by ten points last week in their top-of-the-table clash.<\/p>\n
A four-goal-to-one third term proved the difference for the Rats, who jumped out to a four goal lead heading into the last quarter.<\/p>\n
Similarly to their previous meeting, Minyip-Murtoa found an extra gear in the final quarter to get to within two goals.<\/p>\n
A big crowd is expected to fill Alexandra Oval this weekend, with the Rats potentially sealing the minor premiership hours before the 150th<\/sup> anniversary celebrations.<\/p>\n Founded in May 1971, early games in Ararat were played among a variety of impromptu teams (single vs married men, North vs South Barkly street, before eventually extending the invitation out to other towns for games against the Ararat players.<\/p>\n Ararat joined the Wimmera competition in 1901, while also playing in pennant leagues along with Stawell and Hamilton.<\/p>\n The club had a brief period in the Ballarat Football League, but found opted for a move back after feeling it was not being treated fairly.<\/p>\n Frustrated by its initial decision to leave the Wimmera, other Wimmera clubs blocked Ararat\u2019s re-entry and the Rats sat out of the 1929 season being readmitted the following year.<\/p>\n The Wimmera League as it is known today was formed in 1937 after the Wimmera and Ballarat leagues amalgamated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A WIN this weekend will wrap up the minor premiership for the Ararat Rats and see them advance into the second week of finals. Ararat sits eight points clear atop the Wimmera competition and, despite having the bye in the final week of the season, will lift its first minor premiership in over 15 years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"A WIN this weekend will wrap up the minor premiership for the Ararat Rats and see them advance into the second week of finals.","_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\/rats-vs-dimboola-1-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-mi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382"}],"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=1382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1382"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}