It was looking grim for Manor Lakes at the mid-point of Saturday’s crucial game against Yarraville-Seddon. Injuries were mounting and coach Heath Hunter had only one rotation to call upon, but somehow the team willed its way to victory.
The Storm had to dig deep to open their Western Region Football League division 2 account, overcoming a hefty 24-point quarter-time deficit to win by 10 points at Howqua Street Reserve.
The Storm piled on 11 of the last 17 goals, drawing praise from Hunter, who was thrilled with the way his team responded in adversity.
“The last two weeks we’ve copped a bit of injury,” he said.
“We were down to 18 blokes last week after half-time, and this week we were down to one bloke on the bench.
“The spirit in the blokes to keep going with limited rotations has been really good.”
The Storm was caught off guard in the first term by the Eagles’ exhilarating spread from the contest and afforded the visitors far too much space to work.
“We got sucked into the contest,” Hunter said. “Our pressure wasn’t there and they were getting easy hands over the top.”
The issue was addressed by the Storm at quarter-time.
The players started to win their own share of the ball at the contest and worked hard to make every Eagles possession hard-earned.
“We put it on our leaders that our pressure had to go up,” Hunter said.
“We needed to put pressure on their ball carriers because our backman had no chance at all with the way they were delivering to their forwards,” Hunter said.
“Once we got that pressure up, we started to climb our way back and it was game on at half-time.”
For the Storm, Nathan Montague, Cameron Baker and Brandon Turner worked hard to shine in the midfield.
The tackling of small forwards Nathan Smithwick (three goals) and Mitch Davis was also a feature, ensuring the ball stayed in the Storm’s forward 50 longer.
“Our small crumbing forwards really forced Yarraville to go backwards with their handballs a lot and their kicking,” Hunter said.
“They turned it over and I reckon we got three or four goals with our pressure in their backline.”
The Storm had nine individual goalkickers.
“The last couple of years we’ve relied on Ty Priest kicking our goals and kicking our winning score,” Hunter said.
“Teams are waking up to that now and dropping two and three back on to Ty, so we’re slowly trying to look sideways … if we can have a spread of goalscorers, it’s a lot more unpredictable.”
The Storm will travel to take on winless Caroline Springs on Anzac Day.
Wyndhamvale inflicted a 45-point football lesson on the Springs after four goals to Chris Graham and a best-afield showing from Chris Jones.
Glenorden suffered a 50-point defeat to North Footscray. In division 1, Hoppers Crossing powered to a 76-point win over Port Melbourne Colts.
Division 3
Wyndham Suns will no longer be under the radar after wins in their first two games as a senior club. The Suns scorched Braybrook by 93 points with full forward Brendan Tyquin snaring five goals.
Sanctuary Lakes has bounced back from a first-up defeat with a 62-point mauling of Tarneit on a day Scott Bell booted six goals.
