The Standard | TIMBOON Demons footballers are rallying around two of their clubmates following the death of popular Otway Districts captain Aaron Mahoney.
Mahoney, 24, died in a freak incident during the Colac and District league match between Otway Districts and Lorne at Gellibrand Recreation Reserve on Saturday.
His death sparked tributes from across the south-west football community, with those who knew the father-of-two left in shock.
They include Timboon Demons defender Joe Paatsch and bench assistant Sebastian Hill. The pair played alongside Mahoney at Otway Districts.
Timboon Demons co-coach Mat Whitehead said the Demons would wear black armbands against South Rovers this weekend as a mark of respect.
Whitehead, whose wife Renee is related to Mahoney, said the news had left a sombre mood among the playing ranks.
“(We’ll do) whatever we can to help Sebastian and Joe out. A couple of boys went to milk Sebastian’s cows last night,” he said yesterday.
The news filtered through in the aftermath of Timboon’s 19.23 (137) to 3.2 (20) loss to Nirranda at Nirranda Recreation Reserve.
Nirranda led by 27 points at half-time but slammed on 14.6 to zero thereafter, including 10.3 in the last term.
James Dalton led the scoring with four goals while Danny Craven, Foster and Jesse Dalton were their best.
Ruckman Marcus Hickey was the Demons’ top contributor. Paatsch impressed at centre half-back while Eddie Gaut was solid.
Whitehead said the loss was a step backwards for his side “but looking at the big picture we’ve played one bad game in five rounds”. “We were outplayed and we lost our structure, especially in the second half,” he said.
“We started playing boring football, went a bit defensive and kicked down the line instead of taking the game on. We’ll be fixing things next week.”
Nirranda coach Aidan Cole said the performance ranked up there with the Blues’ best for the season.
“It was a lot closer to a four-quarter effort. We worked tirelessly all day. Our scoreboard pressure was the only thing that let us down in the first half,” he said.
“It’s that little goalkicking problem again. We’re trying to smooth it out. The last half the forwards really worked hard and ended up getting their reward.”
Cole praised the efforts of the Blues’ defence — of which he is a part — for keeping the Demons scoreless after half-time.
“Our back six has been pretty strong all year. We’ve relied just on the six ourselves, rather than boys floating back to help out.
“We match up fairly well. We do have blokes who can play tall and play small — Nick Walsh and even Parso (Luke Parsons), he can line up on small forward pockets.”
