After sitting in first position all season Daylesford  lost  the last three games straight to drop back to third.

The eventual league champion was Maryborough.

It is ay disappointing end to a promising season for the senior side, which looked unbeatable at the half-way point.

Injuries, resignations and poor finishing were prominent in the second half of the season. 

The third placed finish was not what coach Dragi Koleski expected from the talented squad.

‘‘The lads have done really well to battle to the top of the ladder, only to let it slip away at the end,” he said.

‘‘Still, I am proud of the new players that have joined this season, especially those new to the game, and had a crack all year to make our fans proud.’’

The seniors will now play in the cup finals against arch rivals Sebastopol Vikings, in a knockout match this coming Saturday morning at 10am, at Morshead Park, Ballarat.

Come and support the lads, who will be without key players Tim Wheatsheaf, Zoran Drogriski, John Villiers and their star goalkeeper Jarrod Prosier.

The club is unsure if it will have a goalkeeper at all, which is a big worry coming into the finals.

‘‘The boys coming from the bench will have to step up and do their best to win against the Vikings,” Koleski said.

The spring-like weather couldn’t brighten the day for the under-13 and under-15 Daylesford and Hepburn United soccer teams.

A tough day for the young men and women from the springs saw the under-13 team lose 2-0 at home and the under-15 team 7-1 in Bacchus Marsh.

The under-13s played at Victoria Park against the second placed Ballarat Soccer Club.

The Saints were excellent defensively in the first half.

Ballarat rarely troubled the goal as the first-rate defenders made sure the talented Ballarat team could not get any clear shots on goal.

Controlling the midfield was key and good work from Daylesford  saw it hold on to the ball and control the game from the back.

However  Daylesford also had trouble attacking the goals  and could not get past the strong and solid Ballarat defenders.

The first minutes of the second half saw  the Ballarat team growing in confidence as it  started to breach the Saints’ defence.

Two goals came in relatively quick succession as Ballarat found a way past the defenders.

Daylesford kept at it  but could not find a way through the resolute Ballarat defence.

A 2-0 loss on the last home game for the under-13s was hard to take but a good result against one of the best teams in the competitions.

A number of the under-13s had to quickly pull themselves together to make the quick trip to Bacchus Marsh to help the undermanned under-15s against the Bacchus Marsh Scorpions.

The Scorpions were bigger and stronger than the Saints and showed their readiness for the game and came out firing.

They pressured early and Daylesford did well to keep them out for as long as they did.

Bacchus Marsh scored its first goal after only a few minutes and that set the tone of the game.

They scored quickly and freely and were 3-0 up before the Saints could get themselves together.

The Scorpions’ second goal was excellent and the best of the game with an excellent volley giving the keeper no chance.

It was 3-0 at half-time but, to its  credit, Daylesford did not look like a beaten team.

Some solid and long term pressure from the Saints paid off and Daylesford scored an excellent team goal.

The joy was short-lived however as the Scorpions piled on the pressure.

 The goals started to come freely for Bacchus Marsh and, if not for some excellent keeping by the young Saints keeper, the score line could have been more brutal than the final 7-1.

The Daylesford under-15 team reacted very positively to the dire situation and kept their heads up admirably.

At no stage did they give in and they put their hearts on the line until the final minute.

A tough weekend for the Daylesford junior teams but, with one week to go until the end of the season, the future of soccer in Daylesford looks bright.

The Under-11s team finished the season this week with a fine display of youth soccer, a highly respectable standard of play, producing a 2-2 draw final score line against Buninyong on the artificial turf at Morshead Park, Ballarat.

The boys have learned to play their positions as a team; they played the ball well and coordinated smartly on the pitch.

From the beginning of the season, with half the squad made up of boys that had never played the game beyond a school playground kick-around, to this end-of-season established soccer team, taking on some solid opposition teams, the lads have done exceedingly well and the club can be very proud to have had such a fine bunch of boys stick with it with their dedication and enthusiasm. 

Two under-9s teams representing the Daylesford and Hepburn United Soccer Club took to the field in Ballarat on Saturday.

Both teams played extraordinarily well for only their second out of town competitive games of the season with final scores seeing both team narrowly missing out on a win at 4-3 and 2-0 respectively.