Tara Murray
Werribee overcame a slow start to take its winning streak to 13 games in the Victorian Football League.
A strong North Melbourne team pushed Werribee early with the Kangaroos leading by 17 points at the first change.
The middle two quarters saw a Werribee side that we had become used to seeing this year, with Werribee taking a 26 point lead in the final quarter.
Kicking with the breeze in the final quarter, Werribee was able to finish off strongly, sealing a 6.14 (110)-7.11 (53) win.
Werribee coach Michael Barlow said North took it up to them early and they had to work hard to take control of the game.
“It was windy, tough conditions,” he said.
“We were beaten out of the middle early on. They jumped us with three goals and had they taken some opportunities the score line might have been less flattering.
“We then missed a few opportunities late in the quarter. The first 15 minutes we were poor around the ball… we were able to fix that quickly.”
Barlow said they always knew it was going to be tough in the middle of the ground, with the Kangaroos having former AFL captain Ben Cunningham, Hugh Greenwood, Charlie Lazzaro and Tom Powell around the ball.
He said the on field leaders were able to adjust to what was happening around the ball, which was a strength of the opposition, and take it away from them.
“The first 15 minutes of the second quarter looked liked a lot more than what we know,” he said.
“The back half of the first quarter, the second and third quarters and the back half of the fourth quarter we played really well.”
Barlow said challenges like this would only make them better with some tough opposition to face on the run home.
A pleasing thing, the performance was an improvement on their game against Frankston the previous week.
Barlow said they had seen how they train reflect on game day.
“At training we review and then train and prepare for the next week, like clockwork,” he said.
“There’s a correlation with how we feel about training and moving into playing that week.
“We didn’t have the level of intensity and we plateaued for the Frankston game with the way we trained and prepared.
“There was a rise in training coming into the North game.”
Nick Hayes kicked four goals for Werribee, while Hudson Garoni kicked three goals and Sam Paea kicked two goals.
Barlow said it was one of the best performances from the forward line this season.
“The forward line was really effective,” he said. “At three quarter time they had more inside 50s than us.
“The ability of our forwards to execute was at the best level it has been all year. Nick Hayes, Michael Selsby and Hudson Garoni were all integral in that part.”
Barlow said the defensive team again worked really strongly as a team, while highlighting the performances of Jesse Clark and Sam Clohesy.
Barlow said Dom Brew, who had the job on Greenwood, also had a good game.
In positive news for Werribee, Matt Hanson made his return from injury.
Barlow said they feel like they are close to having their best line up available, with only a few players on the edge of the side batting some niggling injures.
Werribee this week faces 10th placed Collingwood on Sunday at 12pm at Avalon Airport Oval.
Despite being the higher ranked team, sitting second, Barlow said they would go in as underdogs.
“You can not look too deeply into the ladder,” he said. “They’re an AFL-aligned club and they beat Carlton on the weekend and Carlton were paying strongly.
“They’ll likely have 18-19 AFL guys.”
