Carlton's VFL affiliate, the Northern Bullants, have ended their home-and-away season in disappointing fashion, going down to top-of-the-table Port Melbourne by 41 points at TEAC Oval on Saturday.

The Bullants finished eighth on the ladder with 10 wins, 10 losses, and a percentage of 90.19. They scraped into the finals along with Port Melbourne, North Ballarat, Williamstown, the Werribee Tigers, the Casey Scorpions, the Coburg Tigers and Frankston.

They will play the Scorpions at Casey Fields in the first elimination final on Saturday at 2pm.

Coach David Teague talks about how the boys went in their final home-and-away hit-out for the year, and about their upcoming clash with Casey.

EVEN though it was disappointing to lose on the weekend, there were some good signs there that came out of the game. The margin was 11 points at half time and we missed a couple of opportunities before that, so we were definitely in the game there for a bit of it.

There were certainly a lot of positive signs ahead of the finals.

We thought playing the minor premiers in the week before the finals was perfect preparation, because going in against another finals contender gets you used to hard footy. Finals intensity is always pumped up a bit.

Against Port Melbourne, Sam Jacobs had a very good game. He played in the ruck and took a screamer. The big ruckmen don't get off the ground too much, so he did a great job.

Adam Hartlett presented well all day and his work rate was right up there, Richard Hadley was very good again and probably one of our best, especially in the first half. Luke Blackwell and Ryan Jackson won a bit of the ball, as per normal.

Matthew Lappin kicked four extremely good goals. Most them came from out near the boundary line, so he had his goalkicking boots on.

Cain Ackland will be back this week. He could have nearly played last week but there was no point risking him in the last home-and-away round. We'll get a few players back with the few that have qualified from Carlton that played seniors on the weekend, so it's exciting times.

We'll get some real depth back, with Darren Pfeiffer, Shaun Hampson, Dennis Armfield, Joe Anderson and Mark Austin back from the seniors, along with Ackland coming back from injury.

The game will step up another level in finals. Those that have played with Carlton will be used to the step up in intensity. The pressure and expectations that go along with finals will give the young players that will be here in the future a great chance to play together for an extra couple of weeks.

Hopefully they can also share in something special with a premiership. 

We're not finding it too hard to keep the boys focused with the others on Mad Monday, because they all know and understand where they're at. They've been really good while the other boys are finished, and the professional environment they've created means they realise the job's not done yet.

As far as our finals chances go, we pushed Port Melbourne for a half and we need to be able to do that for four quarters, but if we had gotten Port on a bigger ground it might have helped us.

With the six players coming back into our team, it will really help us in finals. I think we've got a good chance.

Casey gave us a hiding earlier on in the year. That was a long time ago and both teams have changed a bit since then.

They've got some good players that have played quite a bit of AFL football with the likes of Aaron Fiora, Xavier Clarke and Leigh Fisher playing down there, and a couple of young ones who have played senior footy as well like Ben McEvoy, David Armitage and Jarryn Geary

We'll have to be wary of them, and it's going to take an even team performance from us if we're going to win.

Port Melbourne            5.5    11.8    16.11    20.15 (135)
Northern Bullants            6.1     10.3     12.7     14.10 (94)

GOALS
Port Melbourne: D. McLaren 4, D. Pitt 3, J. Mullins 3, R. Nahas 2, C. Cain 2, M. Smith, J. Baird, T. Pinwill, K. McGlynn, P. Hassett, L. Dare
Northern Bullants: M. Lappin 4, J. Edwards 3, D. Boundy 2, R. Jackson, A. Gianfagna, L. Blackwell, L. Hill, S. Jacobs

BEST
Port Melbourne: C. Cain, D. McLaren, D. Pitt, P. Hassett, S. Pleming, D. Fanning
Northern Bullants: S. Jacobs, J. Vansittart, R. Hadley, A. Hartlett, J. Saddington, D. Boundy