REIGNING Coates Talent League Girls premiers Oakleigh Chargers will face a familiar foe on Saturday when they face the side they beat in the grand final 12 months ago, Eastern Ranges. For coach Ty Vickery, the contest will come down to which side can make the most of their opportunities inside 50.

“Both teams still have a lot of personnel returning who did play in last year’s grand final,” Vickery said. “In terms of similarities, I think we’re both better teams than that rolled out last year, so it’s basically going to come down to who can execute on the day. Whoever can play the best and nullify the other will be the better team on the day I think.”

Oakleigh heads into the decider as favourites, having only lost one game – to Gold Coast Suns Academy – and weathered the storm against the Ranges in Wildcard Round during the sides’ most recent meeting. For Vickery, the 2024 season was one consistency.

“It’s been really interesting,” Vickery said. “We had a lot of the team coming back from last year so a lot of them probably hit the ground running and knew exactly what was required for Coates League. “We remained pretty consistent throughout the whole year and remained really competitive, whilst bringing in a lot of younger girls to look after us in the next few years to come.”

Regarding the last match against Eastern Ranges where the Ranges had the Chargers on the ropes at three quarter time with a 22-point lead prior to Oakleigh reeling them in with four last quarter goals, Vickery said he doubted either side would take too much from that even if the result had gone the other way.

“I’m not too sure the result either way probably affects anyone’s confidence,” Vickery said. “It was a really windy day, and those sorts of windy days are all about ‘do you kick straight when you have the wind for that quarter?’ type thing, and we thought we played okay, probably they didn’t allow us to play our best for a lot of the game and we were able to find our groove in the last quarter and then run over the top of them kicking a few goals.

“We’re really confident that if we can execute a lot of the things we need to, then we’ll get the scoring opportunities and then from there it’s being able to kick straight.”

Last year’s grand final saw Oakleigh triumph by seven points at Ikon Park, 6.7 (43) to 5.6 (36). Then bottom-age defender Sienna Tallariti stepped up to win the best on ground medal, recording a ridiculous 32 disposals, 12 marks, five tackles and six rebound 50s.

Fast forward to 2024, and Tallariti now skippers the Chargers out, with Vickery admitting she has always had those leadership qualities.

“Look she was probably ready to captain us last year to be honest,” Vickery said. “She’s really mature, one of the most mature under-agers I’ve certainly ever met.

“Obviously tops it off with a really impressive grand final last year which probably showed her ability to handle the pressure and the big moments as well as anyone. She’s played really well in big matches for us again this year so we’ll need her to probably do the same again this week.”

Vickery is gunning for his second piece of Under 18s silverware this year after coaching the triumphant Vic Metro squad to the AFLW Under 18 Championships title. There, Tallariti and her opposition captain in Saturday’s grand final, Georgie Brisbane were co-captains.

Through his Metro coaching duties, Vickery got to know a number of Eastern players well, though admitted he was aware of their abilities on-field even last year.

“I think we played them three times this year and last year including practice matches, so you do get to know them regardless of Metro,” Vickery said. “But I’ve got a massive amount of respect for their leaders in that team, particularly Brisbane and (Grace) Belloni and what they’re able to do.

“We’ll obviously just try and find good matchups on them who we think can be really competitive and go from there.”

Oakleigh has a relatively clean bill of health with just “one or two” players missing from the Chargers’ best side. They are in a great spot heading into the decider with double bottom-ager Bailee Martin set to return.

“[Martin’s] probably our best 16 year-old, she missed last week just with illness,” Vickery said. “We’ve been pretty lucky, we’ve probably only got … one or two [missing] from our entire best team. “Maggie Mahony came back in the prelim after breaking her collarbone earlier in the year. She got a game in before the grand final which is very good, and looked really good.”

Focusing on the crux of the weekend, Vickery said the Chargers had to stem the Ranges’ ability to “kick big scores in patches” and that he saw Eastern as a “really good offensive team”.

“If we can stop them and not give them run-ons, break even at the contest or beat them at the contest, then I’m sure we can generate a fair few opportunities ourselves and then from there that’s by us through getting opportunities, hopefully that prevents them transitioning the ball out the other way,” Vickery said.

Oakleigh Chargers face Eastern Ranges on Saturday, with the first bounce taking place at 10:45am.