Under18 TAC Cup

THE Dandenong Southern Stingrays are refreshed after a week off to prepare for this weekend’s preliminary final.
The Stingrays’ opposition will be the powerful Calder Cannons, who have played in the past four TAC Cup grand finals. The Cannons won three and lost the other by a solitary point. The Cannons comfortably defeated the Eastern Ranges last weekend in the semifinal.
The Stingrays will get back Nathan Jones from an ankle injury and Justin Farrelly, Matt Stanley and Jay Austerberry will be also in line for selection after overcoming injury and soreness.
The Stingrays have 11 players nominated to attend AFL recruiting camps postseason. Jones is off to the AIS in Canberra for the national AFL draft camp while Curtis Barker, Greg Bentley, Ryan Cook, Ben Crowe, Sam Gill, Brad Horaczko, James Magner, Daniel Nicholls, Matt Robinson and Travis Tuck will attend the state screening day at Melbourne University.
Brad Scalzo and Jones finished in the top ten 10 in the Morrish Medal for the competition’s best and fairest. Scalzo finished with 15 votes and Jones 12, which included four bestongrounds from only seven TAC Cup games (due to demands of school and representative football).
Jones and Nicholls won places in the TAC Cup team of the year, selected from performances in the TAC Cup and National AFL Under18 Championships throughout the year. Jones was named in the centre and Nicholls on the interchange bench and both can be well satisfied with their years to date.
The preliminary final is at 2.10pm at Kardinia Park, Geelong on Sunday, 18 September.