Tara Murray
Werribee produced one of its best four quarter performances of the Victorian Football League season to make it nine wins in a row.
Coming off the bye, the Werribee coaching staff were wary of the performance that the group might put out against the Sandringham Dragons, having seen the affect of the bye in the AFL.
They shouldn’t have worried, as the group played four quarters of solid football, winning 22.9 (141)-9.11 (65).
Werribee coach Michael Barlow said they had put a fair amount of focus on the start of the game.
“Then being lethargic was front of mind,” he said. “We put on the group to start well and put the game in our hands.
“We did exactly that and the performance was elevated on how we had played recently. It was closer to a four quarter performance than in recent weeks.”
Barlow said they had made a real focus with the group not to look at the scoreboard and final results, but more about how they were going about things.
He said the attitude of the group had been really good and they were understanding what they were trying to do.
“There’s 120 minutes to play per week,” he said. “There’s a lot of effort and mechanisms that go into each game.
“We don’t want to waste many minutes.”
Having got off to a good start and leading by 34 points at half time, the next focus for Werribee was to continue that in the second half.
To Barlow’s delight they were able to do that.
“At half time we wanted them to put the game away,” he said. “At three quarter time we were challenging them to hit some KPIS in the last quarter.
“We are learning lessons the whole way through. Against Coburg we were disappointed how we regressed in the final quarter
“We didn’t handle that well and the players were in agreeance. We didn’t have to look too far back to focus on certain situations.
“We pushed on with the game. I didn’t look at the scoreboard until right at the end and in a blink it was 80 points.”
Barlow said they were really pleased with the effort of the group and that it never waived, leaving them fairly happy with the performance.
Another area which was an improvement for Werribee was the conversion in front of goal.
While Barlow was thrilled to have finally kicked straight, he knows they won’t often have days in front of goal like that.
“Kicking 22.9 takes the air out of the game,” he said. “We were pretty happy with our ability to convert, but we acknowledge it’s not going to keep that way each week,
“We kicked some really good goals, it was a real highlight game.
“Michael Sodomaco kicked two from 50 metres, Kye Declase kicked one from the boundary and Harry Grintell kicked a good one.
“We’re stoked that they executed under pressure, but some of those shots were 50-50 and you can’t think you’re going to kick them every week.”
The win came after a number of changes midweek, which Werribee hasn’t had for a while.
Four players went out through injury, but it opened the door for several players to return.
Grintell played his best game for the club kicking four goals, while Bior Malual played further up the ground on the wing and had a good impact.
Barlow said they would have some difficult selection decisions to make the coming weeks with players pushing to return.
Shaun Mannagh kicked seven goals in the win, while having 25 disposals.
Barlow said he had really taken on advice that they had given them.
“He has taken on some feedback the last couple of weeks about calming his game down a bit and he really built in the game.”
Sodomaco kicked four goals from half back, with Barlow saying he’s not sure he’s ever kicked four goals in a game, let alone a season.
Tom Gribble was the other standout, continuing his good season.
Third-placed Werribee this week faces Port Melbourne at Port Melbourne on Saturday afternoon at 3.05pm.
Having lost last time the two teams played, Barlow said it was a game they were heavily preparing for.
“They got a hold of us last time,” he said. “We’ve put a bit of work into what they did last year and how they are going in recent weeks.
“They were really competitive against Box Hill on the weekend. We will prepare well for a side that has a fair few different levers to pull.”
