By Tom Ingleton
Werribee was left licking its wounds after a sobering 41-point defeat at the hands of a fired-up North Melbourne outfit, which outmuscled and outworked the reigning premiers in a bruising VFL encounter at Avalon Airport Oval on Saturday.
The Kangaroos flexed their AFL-listed muscle, booting eight unanswered goals across the second and third quarters to set up a commanding 13.7 (85) to 6.8 (44) victory.
It was North’s third consecutive win, built on ferocious pressure and sharp ball movement, with a stunning 90 tackles laid across four quarters.
From the outset, the Roos looked the more polished and composed side, holding Werribee to just four goals up until the final change.
Tigers coach Jimmy Allan didn’t mince words post-game, describing the performance as “ordinary” and conceding his team was thoroughly outplayed.
“It was a really ordinary performance,” Allan said.
“The opposition was far too good on the day and we couldn’t get our game going at all apart from about 20 minutes of the second quarter. I just thought they totally outplayed us.”
The Tigers managed to briefly challenge North late in the second term, but any momentum was quickly extinguished by a string of costly turnovers.
“If we had been able to extend that 20-minute patch a bit longer, we could’ve been right in the hunt,” Allan said.
“But we coughed up a couple of really soft goals through errors late in the second quarter which extended the margin again.”
Those lapses proved costly.
With the game slipping away, Werribee produced a lacklustre third quarter that allowed North to surge further ahead.
“I’m not sure if that had an impact on our energy levels or not, but our third quarter was really poor,” Allan admitted.
Disruption also played a part in Werribee’s preparation, with the team hit by a string of forced changes in the lead-up to the match.
“We lost two players in the draft 10 days ago and then one of them kicked three goals against us in the first half, which certainly didn’t help,” Allan said.
“Then we lost three players an hour before the game, a couple through illness and one to injury, so we had three late changes. I’m not using that as an excuse, but it throws the team out a little bit when that happens.”
In the aftermath, Allan emphasised the need to return to the fundamentals and for his group to re-commit to the contest.
“The key message was the game basically starts and ends with your ability to win contests,” Allan explained.
“I just didn’t think we were strong enough to win contests, and then the fundamentals in the game are so important.
“We just made mistakes that stopped us from creating scoring opportunities but also put us under pressure defensively.”
