Player-driven win

By Mark Gullick
BERWICK defeated Narre Warren in a classic round five match of the Cardinia Casey Football League.
Desperate for a win, Berwick hauled its season back on track after a tense seven-point victory over at Edwin Flack Reserve on Saturday.
The Berwick team signalled their intentions early by entering the arena immediately after the conclusion of the reserves match.
They were on the field acclimatising for at least 10 minutes before the Narre Warren team entered the field.
“It was a player driven thing,” Berwick coach Glenn Dale said of the move.
It paid dividends as the Wickers piled on seven goals to two in the opening term.
Berwick was winning the clearances and Narre Warren clearly missed the presence of Daniel Borninkhof who dropped out of the match with a groin injury.
However, the Magpies worked into the game over the next two quarters and by the final change, trailed by just five points.
Berwick rued several missed chances during that period of play.
Narre Warren took the lead in the final term before Berwick rallied and were able to kick goals at crucial times to win another nail-biter.
“After quarter-time, we kicked 1.11 until we scored our next goal,” Dale said. “We missed five shots from inside 30 metres. We just couldn’t put them away and we gave them a sniff and they took that sniff and got in front, but to our boys’ credit they got back in front and won the game.”
Narre Warren coach Matt Shinners was disappointed, but pleased with how his team kept fighting.
“(At half-time) I put the acid on a few of our more experienced players to lead the way as they’d been a bit quiet,” Shinners said. “Our third quarter was really good. Some of the players I’d put the acid on were some of the front-runners in the side who showed us the way back into the game.”
Young midfielder Nathan Page was Berwick’s best player, finishing the match with a plethora of possessions and two goals. He received plenty of support around the ground from defender Adam Dalton and ruckman Dale Robinson. Up forward, Jason Heath and Grant Noonan each kicked three goals.
For the Mapgies, Aaron McIver, captain Glenn Hamilton, Chris Lee, and Nick Scanlon, who finished with four goals, were the better players.
In a further blow for Narre Warren, promising young forward Dylan Piening broke his arm and will spend up to six weeks on the sidelines.
A six-goal third term provided the spark for Cranbourne to edge past Hampton Park and record a 44-point victory at Robert Booth Reserve.
Cranbourne was wasteful in front of goals in the first half, but led 6.13 to 4.4.
Cranbourne was challenged several times throughout the match, but responded each time with a burst of goals.
Once Cranbourne established its lead in the third term, it cruised to victory.
“(The Redbacks) are always tough to beat down there and they beat us last year, so we were pretty primed to make sure our efforts were very good from the start because we expected a very tough game,” Koop said. “They had their opportunities, but I thought our boys were good in restricting them and putting on pressure which didn’t allow them to get that bit of a roll on.”
Hampton Park’s coach Josh Taylor withdrew from the match on game day as his wife was in labour, leaving assistant coach Ryan Simpson in charge.
Simpson believes that Cranbourne was just too good.
“We were pretty lucky to be where we were at half-time because they’d been pretty inaccurate in front of goal.
“They were just a good side all over the ground. They’ve improved from last year.”
Cranbourne had many winners around the ground, including Robert Beadel, Matthew Thompson and Nick Barker. Captain Marc Holt kicked four goals.
Lombard was Hampton Park’s best player and was very effective as a tagger. Daniel Wood, Glenn Rees and Nathan Dawes were prominent.
Doveton succumbed to the league’s form team Beaconsfield, by 50 points at Robinson Oval.
For the second successive week, the Eagles kicked away in the opening term, leaving opposition teams to spend the remainder of the afternoon catching up.
Beaconsfield outscored the Doves by ten goals to four in the middle quarters.
The Eagles relaxed in the final term and were beaten on the scoreboard, 5.5 to 1.0.
Despite the disparity on the ladder, Beaconsfield was wary of Doveton.
“It was definitely a danger game,” Beaconsfield coach Aussie Jones said. “They are a strong, proud club.
“We know they’ve had plenty of players leave over summer, but they’ve still got plenty of talent there. They showed that yesterday when they had some really good passages of play. I expect them to win a few games this year.”
For Doveton, Michael Henry was clearly its best player. He acquired plenty of possessions and kicked five goals. Ryan Pearson, Peter Pullen and Glenn Hamilton tried hard.
Pakenham finally claimed its first win of the year with a solid display over Tooradin.
Although the final margin was 69 points, Tooradin matched Pakenham during the match.
Pakenham led by 26 points at half-time and kicked 12 goals to six in the second half. “We knew (Tooradin would) have a crack at us and play one-on-one footy around the ground,” Pakenham coach Ryan Cassidy said.
Tooradin was again served well by Beau Miller, who has been in excellent form this year. Rohan Hyde and Ben Disney were prominent. Matthew Davey was again in the goals, finishing with four.
In the other match, Keysborough defeated ROC by 38 points.