CARLTON'S VFL affiliate, the Northern Bullants, have advanced to a preliminary final after knocking off Williamstown by 29 points at Burbank Oval on Sunday.

The Bullants earned a week off with the win and will then play the winner of the Port Melbourne – Box Hill semi final next Sunday week at TEAC Oval.

Coach David Teague talks about how some of the Carlton-listed players performed in the pressure cooker atmosphere of a final.

Williamstown got off to a pretty good start even though we had a bit of the play early and didn't capitalise. They had six shots on goal in the first quarter, but we managed to kick a couple against the run of play that kept us in it.

The second quarter was important because we took over use of the wind and created 11 shots on goal. Unfortunately we only kicked four goals, but we camped out in our forward half pretty much and really peppered the goals which ultimately set up the win.

We defended really well against the breeze in the third quarter and closed it out successfully in the final term.

Our tackling and pressure all day was the highlight for me.

David Ellard was particularly effective in that area once again. He has averaged about seven or eight tackles a game this season which is an incredible effort and he had another eight on Sunday. Importantly he also led the way in terms of possessions for us with 33.

Adam Bentick, Brent Bransgrove and the skipper, Adam Iacobucci also finished with eight tackles each which is what gave us the edge in windy conditions.

The boys put so much pressure on them around the stoppages that we often forced them to kick it long down the line which allowed our spare man behind the ball to come into play.

Rather than just have the one guy play that role we rotated Adam Hartlett, Steven Browne, Jordan Bannister and Jason Saddington through there which worked well for us. 

Hartlett was strong defensively, but he's also added a lot of run to his game and has been a really good ball user for us.

Browne and Jake Edwards also played really good defensive roles for us in cutting out their main two goal scorers and at the other end Brad Fisher and Chris Yarran were both dangerous.

Our two ruckmen, Sam Jacobs and Robbie Warnock, dominated the hit-outs particularly Jacobs who had 26 hit-outs to go with his 19 possessions.

With Carlton bowing out of the finals Cameron Cloke, Jeff Garlett and Shaun Grigg have qualified for the VFL finals and come back into consideration for the prelim.

It makes match committee even harder with quality footballers like Darren Pfeiffer and Greg Bentley missing out last weekend because of the 12/10 rule that applies during all finals.

I can understand the reasoning behind the rule, but when you've got two players who are easily in your best 22 but are missing out, it's a bit of an unfair rule for them.

Chris Johnson hadn't played the seven VFL games to qualify, but he was able to play last weekend because of the rule that states you can still play AFL-listed players if the senior side is involved in finals. Unfortunately Chris got knocked out early in the match.

The Blues going out is obviously disappointing, but I don't foresee any adverse effects on the Bullants team. The group is playing with a real hunger, passion and spirit and most importantly they're having fun.

A lot of them were pushing for senior selection, but they've also been pushing for selection in our finals side with only 12 spots available. It's very even at the moment; I could swap two or three Carlton-listed players over and the side wouldn't be weakened.

With the Blues being out now we'll all be able to train together and go through some team structures which was a bit harder to do during the season.

We'll still do a fair bit of work with the boys even though we've got the week off, but they also deserve to freshen up a bit which we'll allow them to do.  

Williamstown 2.4 3.6 4.10 6.13 (49)
Northern Bullants 2.1 6.8 10.10 11.12 (78)

GOALS
Williamstown: Galea 2, Rose 2, Joyce, Roughead
Northern Bullants: Fisher 2, Yarran 2, Anderson, Spiteri, Iacobucci, Ellard, Gianfagna, Bannister, Austin

BEST
Williamstown: Callan, Skipper, Wood, Addison, Joyce, Davies
Northern Bullants: Ellard, Browne, Bentick, Edwards, Hartlett, Jacobs