ARARAT Rats senior side has defeated the Horsham Demons for the first time since 2003.
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The two sides played round eight match of the Wimmera League season at Alexandra Oval in Ararat.
The first quarter was played neck with neither side gaining advantage with both sides claiming two goals each in the first quarter.
However, the wind began to blow in favour of the Rats in the second quarter and stayed that way for the rest of the match.
Rats senior coach Shane Fisher said the side would not be taking the victory for granted.
"I'm a bit of a realist as a coach and we've still got a hell of a lot of work to do," he said. "We at least want to duplicate 2018.
"They (Demons) are still one of the bench marks of the competition and it's been since 2003 since Ararat's been able to beat them, so it's a monkey to get off the back which is pleasing.
"But they kept challenging us - their coach and a couple of their key players like Ben Lakin kept us in the game a lot. To their (the Rats) credit we hung on and got a win."
"All credit to Horsham. They coach well and they put it right up to us, and we certainly won't be resting on that we've beaten them this year when we play them later - we'll take them on their full merit."
Fisher said there were a couple of things at the start of the game which could have been stumbling blocks but quickly became irrelevant.
"We had a couple of late withdrawals in the morning actually, so we had to change our side up a bit," he said.
"We had also come up on another bye and sometimes it might take a while to get on your game."With hard work and focus, Fisher said there was plenty of promise on the list in the younger boys moving up and players who are returning from injuries.
"I keep talking about our younger boys that keep maturing and moving forward," he said. "Cody Lindsay played a great game. Brody Griffin came and played his first game of senior footy and did some nice things.
"As much as we have the older blokes playing a great game, it's the younger kids that are helping us along."
No doubt all players, young and old, will be putting their noses to the grindstone for the next little while.
"We don't have another bye for six weeks," Fisher said.
"We've got Minyip-Murtoa (in round nine) so if you want another challenge to tick off, you couldn't ask for a better one."
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