Doveton defender Mark Mott was among the 2005 premiers’ best in Saturday’s 102point domination of Beaconsfield.By Brad Kingsbury
DOVETON continued its form from a devastating 2005 season and inflicted Beaconsfield with its worst defeat in 13 years at the Perc Alison Reserve on Saturday.
The 102point result had all the hallmarks of the Doves domination of the competition last year, excluding the presence of departed fullforward Danny Casset.
Casset’s absence added further merit to the victory, with tried and true stars including Ryan Hendy, David George and Justin Hill relishing the Doves revised gameplan to finish with 14 of the side’s 24 goals.
Beaconsfield was shellshocked by the ferocity of the Doves’ 10goal opening quarter blitz and the match result was obvious to the big crowd before the quartertime siren.
The game was little more than a practice drill for the Doves and despite the obvious youth and physical immaturity of many Beaconsfield players, the core of their 2004 premiership midfield including ruckman Chris Kelf, Robbie Taylor and Daniel Mislicki were among the vanquished.
Doveton was irresistible.
The Doves added seven secondquarter goals to its score, taking a 93point advantage into the main break and leaving few in doubt about their prospects for 2006.
After halftime a combination of effort from the Eagles and lethargy from Doveton saw a more even effort with the away team only increasing its margin by another nine points before the final siren.
Doveton did not have a passenger and was led by George, Hendy, Robert Hughes, Mark Mott and defender Peter Greenstreet.
Beaconsfield coach Haydn Robins was loathe to select better players, but gave several younger performers including teenager Robbie Palazzolo, who recently returned to the side after being cut by the Dandenong Stingrays.
“He hasn’t played footy for a couple of years. He’s a basketballer and pretty quick, but he’s one of those young blokes learning the game,” he said.
On the game Robins said he was naturally disappointed, but more so with his older players who needed to stand tall and bring the newer players up to their standard.
“We’ve got a few to come back, but I’m just disappointed with our failure to work at the required level all day,” he said.
“I told the players before the game to forget about result and just concentrate on the process. If we get that right the result looks after itself, but we couldn’t do that and that was also disappointing.
“I was more disappointed in our senior group more than anything. We had such a positive preseason and the worst thing about this is that they have to live with that result for two weeks now.”
