Bendigo Advertiser | EAGLEHAWK booted seven first quarter goals while restricting Kangaroo Flat to one to set up an eventual 77-point victory at Bendigo Mazda Oval on Saturday.
Inspired by dynamic full-forward Matt Gretgrix who speared home 11 goals straight - including four in the opening term - the Hawks were in supreme control match-long.
Poor starts and scratchy periods have been an ongoing season problem for the Flat, facts acknowledged by Roos’ coach Jason Stevens.
“This time it was a seven-minute burst at the tail-end of that first quarter. We were just two goals down with seven minutes to play and then all of a sudden we were six goals down at quarter-time,” he said.
Stevens said it had been a feature of Kangaroo Flat games that just about every round the team spiraled into a patch of 10 minutes or so where the players lost focus and had majors kicked against them very easily.
After 100-gamer Glen Daly marked and goaled right on the quarter-time siren, the Hawks added only two second quarter goals to the Roos’ three.
Yet the half-time buffer of 33 points was significant. Gretgrix speared home his fifth goal of the day from the bowling green flank at the Station Street end.
Then two long shots from Cameron Rinaldi and Sam Kennedy kept the Roos mathematically within reach. A 50m penalty to ruckman Nick Lang with 10 seconds left on the clock resulted in a third second stanza major to the Roos.
It only served to fire up the Hawks. They exploded away in the third quarter adding 6.6 to 1.1.
Gretgrix was unstoppable, marking over Tim Brooks relentlessly and nursing home three goals.
For his fourth major of the term the G-Train hauled in a one-handed mark, with the ball clutched to his ribs as he tumbled to the turf, and calmly went back to drill the goal.
Brenton Conforti was also busy, nailing a mid-term major, while Damien Wust floated home the Two Blues’ 15th major as the three-quarter time siren sounded.
In the last term, Gretgrix showed off his ground skills as he gathered a loose ball then ducked, dived and swerved before landing his 10th major.
Rinaldi gave the Roo’s score a semblance of respectability when he steered home two last term goals before Eaglehawk’s Ryan Wellington nailed a ripper set shot from outside the 50m arc on the timekeepers’ box flank.
Eaglehawk coach Luke Monaghan said with Gretgrix marking as well and as consistently as he did all afternoon and kicking so straight the side had a terrific target up forward.
“And we wanted to come out and start well, plus we knew Kangaroo Flat hadn’t been starting too strongly of late. So I thought our boys did really well in that first quarter in picking out the right targets,” he said.
Eaglehawk is at home to Castlemaine next Saturday, while the Roos head to the QEO to face Sandhurst.
