Hampton Park youngster Lee Payne has been in great form for the Redbacks over the past fortnight’s victories.By Brad Kingsbury
HAMPTON Park players were under the pump as they entered the Officer Reserve on Saturday, but left the ground with a spring in their step after a 75point victory three hours later.
ROC players, on the other hand, were sent to the ‘room of mirrors’ by stunned coach Hayden Stanton, who was nonplussed by their uncharacteristically lethargic display.
“We didn’t come out to play today, it’s that simple. We were just pathetic,” he lamented.
“Normally we’re a fairly honest side, but when you’re not honest and you haven’t got a lot of brilliant players, which we haven’t, then you’ll get hammered and that’s what happened.”
The Redbacks were on song from the time they hit the Officer ground and looked a better, more structured unit with the return of Kerem Baskaya to fullforward and Linden Fredericks in the midfield.
Baskaya stamped his imposing ability on the Kangaroos with three firstquarter goals and helped the Redbacks set the scene for the rest of the day’s events.
Hampton Park took a fourgoal lead into quartertime, but Stanton and his assistants were already frantically moving their magnets in an effort to quell the dominance of Fredericks, his brother Hayden, Brett Armitage, Ryan Simpson and Mitch Watman.
The Kangaroos mounted their only real challenge for the afternoon during the second quarter, but the Redbacks replied and led by a matchwinning 33 points at halftime.
The second half was a nonevent and one of the worst played by ROC since joining the Casey Cardinia League last year.
The Kangaroos managed only seven behinds for the half, while their opponents slotted another eight goals to make the scoreline a little embarrassing.
Good players for ROC were few, but Sean Stanton, Anthony Young and Brad Jones tried hard and Stanton said it was a game that would be put behind his side quickly.
“In some ways you’ve almost got to forgive and forget the effort because normally that’s what keeps us in games,” he said.
“They got their tails up early and our inability to shut down a side when they get a runon cost us today. In the midfield they destroyed us and we were lethargic all day.”
Redbacks coach Jason Chapple was full of praise for his side and singled out Baskaya and Fredericks for special mention.
“Baskaya makes a huge difference. He kicked five and gave away about three and took their best defender,” he said.
“Our onballers were first in and Linden Fredericks was best on the ground. He was awesome. They marked our midfielders heavily, but we just wanted it more.
“To hold ROC at ROC to four goals, well we have to take something out of this game with that effort.
“If we continue to play with that intensity, we’ll win more than we lose from here on.”
