HANWOOD Football Club has wrapped up its Griffith Football regular season with a comprehensive 5-0 drubbing of sister club Hanwood Juniors yesterday.
Despite the clash being the last for both sides before they tackle the finals, it lacked the urgency normally associated at this time of the year due to Juniors being unable to snare second place.
Clubs were informed yesterday that Wests Soccer Club would receive three points from a win in round 10 against Leeton, which had featured a suspended player from the Regional Premier League.
United appealed the Magpies decision to select the player in their local first grade side, with the three points then given to Leeton, before being handed back to the Magpies on a counter-appeal with clubs told of the decision yesterday morning.
As a result, Juniors had no chance of claiming a second chance in the finals and opted not to risk several players being injured ahead of the most important weeks of the season.
Hanwood FC Michael Catanzariti confirmed several of Juniors' better players did not take the field, but said all his side could do was play what was in front of them.
"They manage their team pretty well, so there was about three or four guys out, but there was no point in playing them if they had concerns about them ahead of an elimination semi-final coming up," Catanzariti said.
"In parts we managed to knock the ball around alright, but for most of the game it wasn't a great spectacle.
"But like I told the boys we'll have to go up another four or five gears next week, but we did what we had to do."
After two first-half goals, Hanwood FC continued to control the tempo of the game, before going on to put a further three nails in Juniors' coffin.
"It was quite good that they finished the game off well and the pleasing thing is that we shared all of the goals between five players," Catanzariti said.
Hanwood FC will have its own injury concerns this week ahead of a semi-final against Wests, with Michael Bresolin failing to finish yesterday's game with a hamstring strain.
Added to this, Chris Angel and others are only rated as 50-50 chances by Catanzariti at this stage of the week.
