Above: ROC ruckman Darren de Jong and his |Beaconsfield counterpart Chris Kelf contest at a ball up on Saturday. By Brad Kingsbury
BEACONSFIELD held its nerve in the final term of its clash with neighbours ROC to win the crucial game by 17 points and retain a faint hope of a finals’ appearance.
The match, played at Starling Road, was a highpressure and close affair in the first half, before the Eagles broke free in the third term, kicking away to a matchwinning sevengoal lead and then resisting the Kangaroos’ lastquarter comeback.
The Eagles retained the Shanika’s Cup, put up by the sponsor of both clubs, and moved to outright sixth position behind ROC with four homeandaway games to play.
There is no love lost between the two sides and that was apparent from the word go, as players threw themselves into the contest and tried to gain an advantage.
Both sides looked good in attack with Clint Evans and coach Hayden Robins creating problems for ROC and bigmarking Darren De Jong and burly forward Jarrod Goodes doing likewise to the Eagles backmen at the other end.
The Eagles led by six points at quarter time and four points at the main break, but there was nothing in the game and the match was poised to be decided by the side that wanted it the most.
That side was Beaconsfield and that fact became apparent early in the third quarter.
The Eagles dominated the term, with gun midfielder Robbie Taylor assisted by Kris Fletcher and youngster Ash Salter, blanketing the Kangaroo playmakers and bombarding the forwards who took advantage kicking six unanswered goals for the term.
ROC coach Hayden Stanton unleashed one of the great sprays of 2006 at threequarter time and it looked to have worked after the Kangaroos booted the first five goals of the final term.
However steadying majors to Evans (his sixth for the game) and Robins saw Beaconsfield maintain its edge and cruise home to a topnotch win.
Tough ROC onballer Craig Eagleton was a top contributor, while Dean Blake and Michael Barker were also in good nick for the Kangaroos.
Stanton was shattered after the game and said that the result and the process proved that his team still had a long way to go before it could be rated among the top sides in the league.
“I couldn’t have been more gutted than I was after the game,” he lamented.
“Our first half was okay, but we just didn’t come out in the third quarter. I sensed they were a bit flat and Beaconsfield just stepped it up and we couldn’t get our hands on the footy.
“I’ve been saying it for ages, when we’re challenged there’s too many in our group that drop off too quickly. We can’t beat sides above us and we can’t beat competitive, hardedged sides like Beacy when we play three quarters of football, it’s that simple.”
Robins, who left the field with a shoulder injury late in the game, singled out Evans, who has booted 12 goals in the past two weeks, together with Taylor for special praise and agreed that it was one of his young side’s best wins of the year.
“I thought our midfield could probably go with them all right and if we could get the ball down quickly enough we could expose their defence a little bit,” he said.
“That happened, but we went to sleep for 10 or 15 minutes in the last quarter. We did enough to get the win and it was a really good win given the opposition and our developing side.”
