Round 6 | League | Lazarus 2.0 as small forwards inspire comeback

John Townsend

Lazarus is back and he’s wearing a Claremont jumper.

A week after the Tigers clawed back a 39-point deficit to beat East Perth, they had to produce an almost identical miracle to overcome Swan Districts.

This time the gap extended to 38 points and required an astonishing last-quarter comeback – the third best in Claremont’s history and biggest since 1976 – before Callan England’s running goal in the final minutes gave Claremont the lead for the first time.

Lazarus then held on to win by just two points and add another remarkable chapter to the intense rivalry between the two teams.

Winning matches from such deficits is not sustainable, of course.

Coach Ashley Prescott knows as well as anyone that it would be fatal to surrender a six-goal lead to the league’s best teams.

And the reasons for giving up seven goals in the opening quarter – Claremont’s worst defensive term this season – also require scrutiny.

Equally, though, his team has confirmed that it is fuelled by self-belief and filled with the fighting spirit required to overcome substantial hurdles.

It took plenty of both elements to complete the 11.9 (75) to 10.13 (73) victory on Saturday that provided yet another memorable recent performance at Steel Blue Oval.

It ranks with the tie in 2010 when the siren sounded just as Jarrod Ninyette was about to shoot at goal, Jye Bolton’s match-winning 55m bomb after the siren in 2018 and Prescott’s first game back at the Claremont helm in 2021 when Swans kicked 18.1 but lost an engrossing tussle.

A critical reason that Claremont have been able to overcome such sizeable hurdles in the past two weeks has been the efforts of lively small forwards Talon Delacey and Zac Mainwaring.

The pair kicked two goals each against East Perth but then had break-out games against Swans with three apiece as they maintained their near identical career returns.

Each now has 15 goals to his name after making their debuts together in round two last season – Delacey in two fewer games than Mainwaring’s 13 – but neither has had an impact to match their displays on Saturday.

Mainwaring broke Swans’ four-goal opening streak with an exquisite piece of football that underlined Claremont’s most potent elements.

It was like the Harlem Globetrotters were operating in the centre square as ruckman Ollie Eastland won a clean tap to Bailey Rogers who flicked the ball to Jye Bolton, then on to Callan England and back to Rogers whose driving kick inside 50 was taken by Mainwaring on the lead.

Mainwaring converted his strong mark and then bobbed up with important strikes in each of the next two quarters as Claremont firstly resisted Swans’ momentum and then found a way to reverse it.

Delacey had an equal impact on the scoreboard but was even more influential around the ground.

It was notable that Swans recognised the threat posed by Delacey early in the match with their most important defender in captain Brandon Erceg moving onto him.

Delacey did not get on the scoreboard until the second half but his ground-level pressure, with a game-high seven tackles, was instrumental in his team’s success.

And he finished what is likely to be the fastest goal of the season with a 10-second conversion from the centre ball-up to ignite Claremont’s last quarter surge.

Eastland, on the way to a career-best 47 hit-outs, was the catalyst again with a clever palm to Dec Mountford who burst from the centre, kicked long into attack and was delighted when Delacey soccered accurately as the ball fell at his feet.

Claremont are the best finishing team in the league – they have lost just one second-half quarter this year and that by a solitary point – and it was evident that they ended the game with the wind in their sails.

Swans were kept to just one goal after half-time while the Tigers attacked relentlessly until they forced a breach.

Teia Miles was prolific as a rebounding defender, Bolton found plenty of the ball in a greater on-ball role – and delighted his Swans devotees with an important goal from a near identical position to his match-winning effort five years ago – while the two big forwards in Jack Buller and Max Minear worked well in tandem.