Geelong Advertiser | ST Mary’s has suffered its sixth loss of the season and lost Kane Tenace to a hamstring injury in the process.
The Saints could not stay with Grovedale this afternoon, going down by 48 points, as Jordan Erskine kicked seven goals.
St Mary’s coach Bryce Vincent said his side had to contend with being a couple of men down by the main break.
“He (Tenace) walked off the ground in the second quarter and said ‘I’m done’,” Vincent said after the game.
“We’re still in the process of assessing his hamstring and he will also sit under our injury cloud.
“Marc O’Donohue suffered a very stiff neck in that first term so we didn’t want to risk him.
“That aside, I believe our 22 each week is good enough to compete at this level, however we’re just not doing that throughout the four quarters.”
Vincent was disappointed in his team’s effort in the second half, labelling the loss the team’s worst performance of the season.
“We had a plan I suppose where we thought we could win the game, but once again our lapses in quarters cost us three or four goals,” he said.
“We were very ordinary in that third quarter; we didn’t really give a wimp to be honest.
“Today hurts pretty bad and was probably our worst performance for the season, I felt that we were gaining momentum.”
Grovedale coach Craig McCaughan conceded that St Mary’s injuries played a part in the margin opening up in the second half.
“We ran out the game better than them (St Mary’s) in the end but we’re very mindful that they had limited rotations after half-time whether it be in the midfield or on the outside,” he said.
“They were always going to be super competitive and super hard to play against even though their previous results may not show it.
“To have players like (Adam) McPhee and (Matt) Hebbard run real deep, that made it hard to make any specific match ups throughout the midfield and up forward as well.”
St Joseph’s flexed its muscle over finals aspirant St Albans, winning by 86 points at Drew Reserve.
The Carson brothers Dale and Paul combined for 11 majors (six and five respectively) as Joeys blasted the Supersaints out of the water.
St Albans failed to score in the final term as unbeaten ladder leader Joeys inflicted more pain with a six-goal quarter.
“I thought today was a super performance,” Joeys coach Heath Jamieson said.
“We lost (Daniel) Measures and (Tom) Atkins late to the VFL and we also lost Brent Jackman, our playing assistant coach, and we had to throw the team around a bit and we haven’t had to do that much.
“We had two blokes playing their first game for the year, Zac Morison and (Jack) Thackeray and I thought they fitted in really well.
“I think we’re in a pretty good place at the moment. When you lose players like that and have no worries with the people you replace them with, you’re going well.”
St Albans coach Nick Daffy was bitterly disappointed post match.
“That’s a fail today and next week we play Colac and I’m pretty sure that won’t happen again,” he said.
IN other GFL games, Stephen Paulke kicked eight goals to lead Bell Park to a 53-point win over North Shore.
Tyler Stack was best on for the Dragons as they booted nine goals to four in the second half to comfortably run away with the game and inflict a fourth-straight loss on the Seagulls.
The win moves Bell Park within a game of the three teams currently battling for the final two spots in the top five.
NEWTOWN & Chilwell comfortably accounted for an injury-plagued South Barwon, cruising to an 80-point win.
Jai Sheahan booted nine goals for the winners.
THE nightmare continued for Lara, going down by 285 points to Leopold.
The Cats registered their only score for the afternoon, a goal, late in the third quarter, while the Lions amassed 61 scoring shots and 46 goals in the win.
Geelong West-St Peter’s and Colac had the bye this weekend, having already played their Round 8 match on Good Friday, which Colac won by 32 points.
In the BFL, Geelong Amateur fell agonisingly short of taking the points against Barwon Heads.
They kicked the only five goals of the final term to come from 36 points down to have a chance to take the lead with a set shot for goal, but missed the opportunity.
The siren sounded with the ball in Ammos’ forward half, going down by just three points in the end.
ANGLESEA got back on the winners’ list with a 24-point win over Portarlington.
Demons coach Matt Sproule couldn’t hide his disappointment after the game, feeling it was an opportunity let slip by his side.
“Very frustrating, because we didn’t play to the way we spoke about on Thursday night and we didn’t listen to certain key areas we spoke about,” Sproule said.
“In the end we just didn’t get the job done, they played better. We’re not going to use excuses.
“We need effort to compete if we don’t have effort we don’t play well ... our tackle count was low, our stoppage count was on the negative.”
Josh Bouwman booted four goals for the Roos, in a game in which Anglesea coach Jason Armistead was not completely satisfied with the performance but happy to get the four points.
“We’ve had a couple of pretty tough weeks where things didn’t go our way we wanted to,” Armistead said.
“This week we’ve just focused on all the positive stuff that we’re capable of and that was our starting point this week.”
“We still didn’t play our best today either, but it was a good turning point I think.”
“We went back to enjoying playing footy a little bit today as well.”
AN eight-minute blitz helped Torquay break the shackles from Drysdale and rip the game open at Spring Creek Reserve.
After losing ruckman Jack Madgwick in the opening minutes of the game to injury, Drysdale kept itself in it, before the Tigers put on a burst of six goals just before the half-time break.
After kicking five goals in the first quarter, the Hawks didn’t register another major for the rest of the afternoon, as Torquay sailed to a 69-point win.
A SIX-goal haul from Daniel Maloney helped Ocean Grove to a 34-point win over Modewarre.
QUEENSCLIFF belted a hapless Newcomb by 194 points, as Jak Evans kicked six goals, Zac Henderson five and Alex Simpson four in the win.
In the GDFL, Belmont Lions kicked eight goals to two in the third quarter, and continued the charge in the last to also get a goal of Werribee Centrals.
But Werribee fought off the challenge with the final goal of the game, to finish nine points in front.
It was the only really close game of the round, as the rest of the games went as expected.
Inverleigh inflicted Winchelsea’s fifth 100-point drubbing of the season, with a 108-point victory.
Anakie book ended its match against Corio with quarters that helped it to a comfortable 37-point win.
A 10-goal first quarter and six-goal last term helped set up and close out the win over the winless Devils at the bottom of the ladder.
Bannockburn belted East Geelong by 124 points. After a close first term that saw the visitors lead by just a goal at quarter-time, Bannockburn went on to kick eight, seven and 11 goals in the final three quarters to steam home.
Thomson kicked 10 goals to one in the second half to beat Geelong West by 74 points.
