Narre Warren youngster Nick Scanlon flies in front of Hampton Park’s Dean Jamieson to take a great mark during Saturday’s Casey Cardinia league match of the day won by the Redbacks.By Brad Kingsbury
HAMPTON Park threw Casey Cardinia League premiership predictions into disarray by ending Narre Warren’s eightgame winning streak at the Booth Reserve on Saturday.
The result saw the Magpies slip to second place on the ladder with the Redbacks next opponent, Pakenham, taking the numberone mantle.
Hampton Park’s 25point win was full of merit and showed that the Magpies were vulnerable to sustained pressure, particularly in attack, where muchheralded goalkickers Lee Clark, Brett Evans and Ryan Stanes were shut down.
At the other end, enigmatic Redback star Kerem Baskaya displayed his awesome talent to an adoring home crowd with a bag of six goals that could have been 10 had he kicked straight early in the match.
The build up to the clash was intense with both clubs’ abundance of raw footballing talent attracting a huge crowd (a record gate at the ground) despite cold and breezy conditions.
Excluding Magpie coach Aussie Jones and Redback star Josh Taylor, the two combatants were at or close to full strength.
Key matchups, as the teams took their positions, included Redback defenders Ryan Simpson and Hayden Fredericks on prolific scorers Lee Clark and Brett Evans and Eric Singh in a runwith role on VCFL rover Ricky Clark.
The Redbacks took advantage of the wind in a tough, but often scrappy, first term and peppered the goals.
Baskaya marked strongly despite close attention from experienced Magpie defender Steven Kidd, but missed several shots at goal that could have hurt the Redbacks’ opponent.
The normally superphysical and confident Magpies were led to the ball and made to look slow by Hampton Park’s intensity at the ball and apart from Shane Dwyer and Daniel Field, looked out of sorts under pressure in the midfield.
The quartertime difference was 10 points, but the writing that Narre Warren’s dominant style was under serious threat, was already on the wall.
That trend continued after the first break, with the loss of powerhouse onballer Michael Collins to a hamstring injury further upsetting the Magpies’ balance.
The game became an armwrestle in the second term with Hampton Park leading by 15 points at the main break and continued that way until the Redbacks made a significant, matchwinning move midway through the third term.
Baskaya and centre halfforward Matt Shorey broke free and helped the side to boot six goals in 14 minutes to take a 40point lead into the threequarter time huddle.
The effort was more meritorious, given that three of those goals were scored after Redback ruckman Brendan Fredericks was sent from the field and reported after a clash with Magpie Mark Churchill.
As has been the way of the Magpies all season, they attacked and came back in the final term, booting four goals to two, but the Redback ‘army’ lifted their team with sustained support from the sidelines and saw them home in what could become a seasondefining win.
Simpson’s effort on Clark was superb all day, with the star goalkicker acknowledging it was his hardest matchup of the season to date after the game.
Other Redbacks to stand out in a top team effort included Brett Armitage, Pat Clish, Scott Eastwood and ‘excitement machine’ Linden Fredericks.
Proud Hampton Park coach Jason Chapple was thrilled with the win, but warned opposition teams that there was still plenty of scope for improvement.
“These buildups, especially for a side as young as we are, are the ones you dream about,” he said.
“We held on, we were hard at the footy, but I reckon in some instances in the last quarter we did panic so that was disappointing. I think we turned it over a bit so there’s room for improvement there.
“I thought one of the places we won it was the fact that we ran away from them with the ball. I just thought our attack on the footy was great and couldn’t be questioned today.
“We could have been a lot further in front and that’s a good sign. The players are trying to make a statement after being down early in the year. Narre is a great side so, to get that under our belts is magnificent.”
In an aggressive move Chapple showed faith and confidence in his team and did not try to shut the game down in the final term, despite Narre Warren having kicked seven goals or more in the last quarter six times this season.
Excluding Dwyer, Field, Glenn Hamilton and running defender Jarrod Anderson, the Magpies had few fourquarter contributors and Jones said that the game had been a real wakeup call.
“For me it was an attitude problem. We had blokes out there as quick as their opponents, but we let them run off and that looked bad. We were exposed for attitude,” he said.
“I learned a lot today. There are a lot of blokes (at Narre Warren) that can’t turn it around when they are challenged in the middle of the game.
“It was one of the best buildups we’ve had, but we’ve been starting slow and they could have put us away if they had kicked straight in the first quarter,” he said.
“That was not acceptable and it was definitely a reality check. When the side’s going well it can cover over poor games from some players and they will know during the week that they were poor and performances like that will not be accepted at this club now.”
