The Courier |
LEARMONTH was the party-pooper on Saturday at Rokewood defeating the Grasshoppers by 77 points.Rokewood-Corindhap was celebrating the club's triple premierships in the 1990s and a win would have been the icing on the cake.
LEARMONTH 16.20 (116)
ROKEWOOD-CORINDHAP 5.9 (39)
The Grasshoppers were 16 points adrift at the first break and chasing a 24-point deficit at half time.
There was some clever play from the Grasshoppers at times but the Lakies seemed to be first at the ball and their anticipation and awareness of the ball was much better.
A seven-goal burst in the third term by Learmonth shocked Rokewood-Corindhap, which couldn't find the goals at all.
The Grasshoppers looked tired in the last quarter but some efforts by Jono Willey, Heath Anderson, Ross Arnall and Bayden Mellington stopped some of the Lakies' run.
Arnall's tackling and persistence saw him biting the dust many times during the game but he got his own back with the last goal of the day.
The only multiple goal scorer was Michael Stanley with two. Zac Hedin, Dylan Bourke and Arnall chipped in with one each.
Solid for Learmonth were Ryan Barnes and Matt Sutherland ... the pacy pair of Jordan Fraser and Chris McGuigan were irrepressible.
The Lakies back half dominated every quarter and robbed the Grasshopper forwards of the ball time after time.
There were eight goal-scorers for Learmonth. Three goals each for Cameron McCallum, Chris McGuigan and Broderick Campbell; two majors for Jason Duffy and Patrick McGuigan; and handy singles to Joshua Reichman, Jordan Fraser and Nathan Reeves.
Learmonth coach John Northey had a close eye on his team's performance and believes they are getting better in some areas.
"Once you get on top of a team you've got to keep going. That's what we tried to do all day but it didn't always work," Northey said.
"At least we were trying different things. Our training throughout the week was very good. Thursday was very, very good.
"Our training has been the best it's ever been and we brought that to the game today."
Rokewood-Corindhap coach Heath Anderson was brutally honest about the result.
"We just got smacked in contested footy. They were more keen to get in and get the ball," he said.
"We've got to get everyone to commit to the team plan ... stick to it as 22 players, as at the moment we have 15 or 16 doing their role in the team. It's not good enough ... you can't carry players in this league.
"We need to work hard on the track and improve our fitness. We've got eight new recruits this year and it will take time for us to gel. At the moment it's costing us winnable games."
*YOUNG Grasshopper forward Caius Barranger didn't see much of the ball on Saturday but the 16-year-old did carry the torch for his father Wayne.
Wayne Barranger captained the three premiership-winning teams 20-odd years ago.
A win would have been good but that didn't affect the reunion celebrations. They were going strong as the teams packed up.
