Sport
5 September, 2025
MCDFNL Football Preliminary Final Preview: Carisbrook vs Natte Bealiba
After outlasting Harcourt, Natte Bealiba’s gauntlet for a repeat doesn’t get any easier, facing a team that has crushed numerous of their premiership aspirations in the past.
The 2024 season was the first time in eight finals series that the Redbacks and Swans didn’t face off, a remarkable streak that dates back to the 2014 season.
Carisbrook has frankly dominated the record over Natte in September football, winning seven of those encounters, with the undoubted highlight being achieving back-to-back premierships at the Swans’ expense in the 2018 grand final.
The only victory Natte got over Carisbrook in finals during that near-decade timeframe arguably couldn’t have come at a better time, enacting their revenge on the Redbacks in the 2019 season finale to win their second MCDFNL premiership.
The reigning premier’s quest for a fourth flag survived a major scare in the semi-final, with Harcourt falling just short after kicking six unanswered goals in the fourth quarter.
“I said to the boys we are lucky we can learn from our mistakes that could have cost us dearly in the last quarter, we have got a lot to learn from that, which is a positive,” Natte player-coach Trent Mortlock said.
“I thought our last quarter was pretty poor. We didn’t adjust quickly enough and we got very one-sided.
“The message at three-quarter time was we have still got to kick a winning score, which we didn’t do, but we held on which showed a bit of grit and determination.”
While seeing a 42-point three-quarter time lead shrink to single digits will get your heart going, it’s nothing compared to what the Redbacks faithful went through in their qualifying final versus Talbot.
After a brilliant first half, Carisbrook almost squandered a 63-point lead midway through the third quarter, but barely managed to hold on.
Carisbrook senior coach Brandon Weatherson said he doesn’t want one half of football to cloud over his team’s ability to peak at the right time.
“I feel like over the last month we have played the football we are capable of, we have been building towards it all year,” he said.
“We haven’t moved the ball as well as we would have wanted in the first half of the year and we are starting to see us do that a lot better, so we will continue on that.
“I think just the ability to take some air out of the game, get some repeat stoppages instead of trying to continue to move the ball quickly, I think we need to adjust.”
While Natte got the better of Carisbrook in their home and away clash back in round 13, Mortlock said Sunday’s encounter will be a hard-fought battle.
“Carisbrook played a very good half last week and a not so good half, so they will be looking to rectify and play four quarters of football,” he said.
“I say it a lot, but it really comes down to the boys believing it and having faith in what we have done over the last three years while I have been coaching.
“We have been trying to play a simple brand of football, we don’t overcomplicate things and it’s just about the boys believing in the concept and the way we want to play.”