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A YOUTHFUL Bellarine interleague side was overrun by a cohesive Casey Cardinia outfit by 45 points on Saturday at Simonds Stadium.
The Casey Cardinia Demons bounced back from a lacklustre first term to shut down Bellarine’s offensive output in the second and third quarters, restricting the home side to 1.5 in that period while adding 12 goals.
Despite the Demons taking only a 10-point lead into half-time, it was easy to see the momentum had swung in their favour.
Known ball-winners Michael Collins, Josh Tonna and Matt Lee — all from Narre Warren — provided great drive from the centre and wing positions, cutting apart the dejected Bellarine Sharks.
Narre Warren’s dominance of the Casey Cardinia FL reflected in the fixture on Saturday. The top side was represented by 10 players, almost half the side, and Bellarine co-coach Matt Verfurth highlighted that as a key advantage for his opponents.
“You could really see that they had 10 guys from one side playing together and you could see the way their chemistry was,” Verfurth said post-match
“We had three or four weeks together and probably didn’t jell.”
The Sharks were essentially beaten at their own game in the second half. In a team designed to have quick, skilful players with plenty of stamina delivering the ball to key tall targets, instead it was Casey Cardinia which worked that plan to perfection.
Late inclusion Marc Holt ended up the star of the day, bagging eight goals straight and winning the medal for best-on-ground in the Demons’ side. Holt proved superior to almost everyone who went to him, with Verfurth admitting it took some time to find the right match-up.
“I think we started (Dylan) Holland on him, Cormac Cashin had a go at him and then we ended up with Marc O’Donoghue on him, who, I thought, played really well,” he said.
“I think more disappointing was that we left them one-on-one a lot.
“As a group we didn’t get back and defend with team defence and didn’t drop back and help him (O’Donoghue) out in the air.”
Holland received no luck for his troubles, injuring his left knee early in the second quarter which saw him sidelined for the rest of the match.
Verfurth looked to take positives out of the match, praising the work of youngsters Dale Kerr, Ash Caldwell and Steve Bensted, the latter who won the Bull Bennett Medal for the Sharks’ best afield.
“You take the good with the bad, there’s a lot of young kids blooded and hopefully that’s good for the future for them,” he said.
“We were probably disappointed more in the way we played through the middle.
“In the first quarter we structured up really well, then we sort of went away from that.
“Once we got behind I think the boys did drop their heads a little bit.”
