THE Northern Blues felt that the 16-point loss to Port Melbourne at home on Sunday was one that got away.
Mid-way through the term they had sprung to a two goal lead after a second quarter comeback. But under pressure and knowing another game was starting to get out of their control, Port’s seasoned players stood up led by former Northern Blue Ryan Gale, whose third goal put the Borough back in front before three quarter time.
Also on Football Nation: VFL Round 4 Results and Ladder
John Baird and Chris Cain began to have some influence on the game in the third term. Cain and Julian Rowe kicked early goals in the final term to perhaps seal the victory.
For Port, this was a memorable victory given it lost power forward Dean Galea in the opening term with a dislocated shoulder. The club is not certain of the extent of the damage but he is likely to join other players such as Toby Pinwill and Shane Valenti on the sidelines you’d assume. Galea took no further part in the match on Sunday.
But for the Blues, they had the ingredients of victory right in front of them. Nick Meese was on top in the ruck, Jarryd Cachia was nullifying Baird’s influence and David Ellard was a work-horse in the midfield.
It was the first loss of the season for the Blues, but they remain in the top four.
“It was a disappointing effort all day, we showed that we could play up against them and we pulled our fingers out in the second quarter and the third quarter when I asked the boys for their work rate and intensity to lift and they did that. Then we dropped away again and they obviously got on top of us in the last quarter,” Blues coach Luke Webster said after the game.
“I said to the boys if we fix up a few different areas, we gave some poor handballs at times and that just allowed them to turn the ball over and score against us. All in all, they were very good, they’re a quality team Port and they took it right up to us in the intensity and work rate and they probably wanted it a bit more in the end but again we probably had our own opportunities to be able to win the game ourselves and we put ourselves in winning positions at stages in the game but just couldn’t finish it off. It’s a little bit disappointing,” he said.
Webster said the Blues players “hurt in a way” after the match.
“They (the players) hurt in a way. You never want to lose games of football. We’ve been up for a while now and the boys have been terrific and the boys were fairly good for the majority of the day today but we got outworked for more parts of the game than we were in it. You’re obviously disappointed with the loss. The boys were disappointed but we’re straight back on and we look forward to taking on Sandringham next week,” he said.
Webster praised Dylan Buckley, who kicked two goals.
“His intensity around the ball was much better from last week, he kicked two goals. I think he can still improve on his performance, not as good as he has been going. But his consistency throughout a game is what we’ve been looking for,” he said.
He also said that Tom Bell had kept the team in the game at times with three goals.
“Belly kept us afloat there for a while. He kicked three on the day and he had 24 or 25 touches so he worked very well in the stoppages there for us. Like all our mids though, we have to continue to work on deficiencies and they beat us on the spread and the work rate today and they just wanted it more than we did,” he said.
While the Blues dropped their first game, Casey and Geelong remain undefeated after four rounds.
Casey defeated Williamstown by 23-points, while Geelong won by 79-points over Frankston.
In other results for round four, Collingwood smashed Bendigo by 116-points, Sandringham also gave Werribee an unexpected 64-point hiding, Box Hill got home by 28-points over the Coburg Tigers and Essendon defeated North Ballarat by 35-points.
Hero of the week: Ryan Gale (Port Melbourne) – Against his old team, Gale stood tall in the second half to get Port across the line. Port desperately needed a tall forward to stand up in the absence of Galea and he did.
Villain of the week: Kris Pendlebury (Werribee Tigers) – We know he’s just come back from injury but Pendlebury and co in defence for the Tigers simply couldn’t keep up to Spencer White and the fast-paced Zebras attack on Saturday. Pendles has had a quiet start at his new club.
Image appears courtesy of and with permission from Dave Savell. All rights reserved.