EASTERN Ranges head into the 2025 Coates Talent League Grand Final looking to break recent trends. They face three-time reigning premiers Sandringham Dragons at IKON Park on Saturday with the potential to play spoiler to a historic fourth straight flag, while creating their own glory.

>> FEATURE: “Settled” Sandringham ready for shot at history

The Ranges last won a title in 2013 and have since been runners-up in 2015, ’19, and ’23. The most recent of those defeats saw the Eastern boys and girls sides go down on the final day of the season, and they have both qualified for respective deciders again. Therein lies the first chance to re-write history.

In what has already been a trail-blazing career, coach Lauren Morecroft could also become the only woman to win a Coates Talent League boys premiership. It comes after she was the first female head coach to mentor a male team at the Under 18 National Championships earlier this year.

Despite the stakes and an exciting build-up between two Metro powerhouses, Morecroft maintains it has been business as usual for her side. The “vibe” around the club is high, with Eastern confident its style of football will be able to produce “one more performance” and clinch the CTL crown.

“We’ve got a pretty good brand that’s stacking up at the moment,” she said. “We keep talking about what got us to this point and each week we’ve probably built on that. ‘Why are we here?’, the numbers behind it. The brand of footy that we play stacks up.”

There’s little wonder why the Ranges harbour so much belief. They’re flying. If victorious on Saturday, it would mark Eastern’s tenth consecutive win, so far by an average margin of 40 points. Scattered in those results was a 70-point win over Sandringham – the last time the Dragons tasted defeat, in July.

“They’re a new team again, it’s a new game,” Morecroft said. “A bit of a different style that they’re playing too, completely different to when we played them at Box Hill. Although, we take belief out of that win that we’ve done it before… We’ll definitely be scouting them pretty hard.”

Eastern is among the most talent rich regions in the country this year, boasting a handful of likely first round talents. Many of them are built for big occasions, which made it difficult for Morecroft to identify just one who could be the quintessential difference-maker on Saturday.

“I reckon we’d have at least one or two on each line,” she said. “That’s probably a strength of the group and that’s why we’ve been so consistent this year.

“We all know that [Oliver] Greeves through the middle is going to be really important. [Lachy] Dovaston loves the big stage, particularly in finals and he’s proven with his goalkicking. Xavier Taylor is a fair barometer, but also Oskar Taylor next to him is pretty huge too.”

The Ranges also boast an enviable bottom-age crop, and many of them have been fulfilling integral or underrated roles throughout the season. Morecroft knows they’ll need to do it one more time to get the win.

“Mitch Gillan as a young guy, he’s a great role player for us down back,” she said. Rod Ali, he’s obviously had a little bit of interest as well. He’s really important for us. Then structurally we’ve got some guys that play forward, Thomas Swainston and Charlie Nash.

“Our guys on the wing and some of our younger guys that are planning really well like Jordan Knapp and Harrison Chapman. They’re the guys that probably don’t get as much notice but they’re definitely really important in terms of our structure and helping the other guys shine too.”

Eastern has a relatively clean slate heading into the big dance, with only forwards Jamie Gilchrist (hamstring) and Mitchell Hansen (calf) set to miss through injury. The “squad mentality” of the group means a further seven or eight will be stiff to miss, with all 40 players used at one point this season.

Having been branded the “form team of the competition” by opposition coach Rob Harding, the Ranges are well poised to light up the biggest day of the year. It all gets underway with the girls Grand Final at 10:30am, before the boys take centre stage at 1:00pm.