Narre Warren onballer Daniel Field is tackled without the ball by Tooradin’s Tom O’Loughlin in Saturday’s match.By Brad Kingsbury
TOORADIN had its slender 2006 finals hopes ripped to pieces by a merciless Narre Warren at the Western Port oval on Saturday.
The Magpies disposed of the undermanned and seemingly intimidated Seagulls by 134 points, a loss later described by Tooradin coach Dan O’Loughlin as by far the team’s worst effort this year.
After a promising start to 2006, the Seagulls have now won only seven games and are looking at finishing the season with a worse record than 2005, unless they can find a way of downing two of its last three opponents in Pakenham, Doveton and Devon Meadows.
On form that would appear unlikely, which would be a major blow to all at the club.
The Seagulls were behind the eightball from the start, with O’Loughlin and star playmaker Tom Hallinan missing from the line up.
It was obvious from early in the game that the home side lacked both the talent and intensity to worry Aussie Jones’ finalsbound team and the scoreboard margin steadily increased as the match progressed.
Apart from the battling efforts of Phil Cahill, Scott Weekley and veteran ruckman Greg Bethune, there was little for the Seagulls supporters to cheer and O’Loughlin was at his wits’ end after the game.
“I’m just shattered and the game was our worst for the year by a country mile,” he said.
“We were shown where we have to be to compete in the top three of this league.
“At threequarter time I made a big plea about playing for Tooradin really representing something, but 10 goals to two in the last quarter said it all for the day. There was the obvious difference in skills, but just to not show the commitment, well it’s just so disappointing.”
Just to add a little more pain to the result, wingman Adam Splatt was reported by three umpires for striking and will miss the next game after accepting a set oneweek penalty.
Narre Warren’s effort was full of merit after its loss the week before and it was highlighted by a spectacular Lee Clark mark in the final term, described by chairman of selectors Travis Marsham as the mark of the year.
“It was like (Essendon’s) Gary Moorcroft’s grab from a few years ago and just left everybody in awe,” he said.
“Lee was unbelievable and it was clearly his best game for the year because of his work rate.
“The thing that Aussie addressed at threequarter time was that we wanted to get back to finishing a game for 120 minutes. It’s something we haven’t been real good at and that’s the key against good sides.
“It was a satisfying response to questions that were asked of the playing group during the week.”
Magpie Clark finished with eight goals and was joined in the votes by his brother Ricky, Glenn Hamilton and Shane Brewster.
