CaseyCardinia league round 14

By Brad Kingsbury
INSPIRATION for Pakenham’s 54point victory over a tired looking ROC at the Toomuc Reserve was drawn from an emotional prematch address by Lions’ legend Bill Drake.
On a weekend that celebrated the history of the club and featured the return to Pakenham of many highly regarded former players and officials, the injuryravaged senior side, laden with youth, emphatically consolidated its position in the top five against a fellow contender.
The sentiment of the occasion added to the theatre, however both coaches were aware of the significance of the game given the current (and now almost expected) closeness of competition in the league and ROC mentor Hayden Stanton summed up the day succinctly.
“Pakenham was more professional around the stopplays, they didn’t get sucked into the footy, they were disciplined, they hit harder than us today,” he said.
“Fortyone shots to 17, that’s a comprehensive towelling.”
Both sides were struck with injuries to key senior players with the Lions missing Lincoln Withers, Joel Padley, Dimitri Dimakopoulos and Glen Wouters (suspended), while experienced ROC pair Kable Dowsett and Steve Pursell were also looking on.
Pakenham coach Michael Holland put his trust in the club’s youngsters as he has done all season and again with firstgamer Daniel Fry joining Cory Lenders and Luke Walker to lead the way.
Lenders refused a request to play with the Gippsland Power under18 side on the weekend in favour of the Lions and was rewarded by being named among the team’s best players.
Holland’s decision to use the 25year celebration as a motivating factor via Drake’s prematch address and again at the breaks in play, proved a masterful move, with Pakenham’s faithful sensing the occasion and the players lifting to dominate despite terrible kicking for goal.
With the advantage of a steady breeze in the first term, Pakenham kicked 1.8 to 1.1 in a frustrating start. The Lions won handsomely around the ground and set the scene for victory early, but could not put the Kangaroos away on the scoreboard.
The Lions took a sevenpoint lead into quarter time and a sixpoint advantage into the halftime break, after ROC hung in and battled well during the second term.
After half time it was all Pakenham with big George Morgan taking control around the ground and young midfielder Lenders crashing through older and more seasoned opponents like they were made of butter.
Defenders Glenn Pearson and Matt Wouters stood firm and ROC players looked sluggish and were second to the ball throughout the second half.
The Lions return of 7.14 to nothing in the third term underlined its dominance of the game, but also its poor conversion rate in front of goals.
Stanton put his players’ senior positions on the line at threequarter time and to their credit the Kangaroos tried valiantly for the final 25 minutes, outscoring the Lions by eight points for the term.
The successful return of David Sheahan to senior football was another bonus for the Lions and Holland said the emotion of the day proved an advantage in the end.
“I thought we turned the corner last week (against Devon Meadows). We had a great week on the track and there was a lot of emotion today, but everyone stood up,” he said.
“We brought everyone together, the supporters and the people around the club and we harnessed the emotion.
“We’ve still got a long way to go to match those top sides, but we’re definitely on the right track. The young blokes have been good, but we know we just have to keep winning if we want to play finals.”
The Lions had 41 scoring shots for a return of 13.28 and should have won by a far greater margin and a subdued Stanton said the challenge for his drained players was now to dig deep and regain fifth position in the next four weeks.
“Every week for us this year has been a minifinal and we have to come out and play our best footy to win,” he said.
“We’ve been touched up by the good sides. They’ve run harder and they’ve been harder around the contest. We’ve also been found out by the bigger grounds on a couple of occasions.”
Stanton said the confidence in the group had taken a bit of a battering in the past couple of weeks.
“With what was at stake in this game. It wasn’t whether we won or lost it, it was the way we lost it. We’ve got to regroup and work on the things that we can control,” he said.
“We’ve got Cranbourne this week and it’s quite simple, we have to win.”
On a positive note for ROC, there were no injuries out of the game and the form of Ben Tivendale, Tyler White and defender David Main was outstanding throughout the match.