Eagles eye double chance

CRANBOURNE looms as the main threat to dominant top two Doveton and Pakenham after a hard-earned 27-point victory over Keysborough at the Rowley Allen Reserve on Saturday.
The inaccurate Eagles trailed by 29 points at half-time and looked to be in trouble.
However, after a paint-peeling spray from coach Doug Koop, an eight-goal third quarter turned the game around and set the side up for a tilt at the coveted double chance in the last two weeks of the season.
Keysborough coach Greg Siwes had his team ready to play and the early dominance of ruckman Shaun Witherden and on-ballers Lloyd Wells and Daniel Papa created headaches for the Eagles.
As usual William Gayfer had the job on star Eagle Marc Holt, which allowed Davor Rajic, Matt Freeman and Travis Skidmore the freedom to run and drive the ball forward for the home side.
The Burra applied great pressure in an entertaining first half and skipped away with some magic around goals from Luke McGuinness, David Roberts and Andrew Ferguson, to lead by 29 points at half-time.
Cranbourne looked anything but a top-three side in the first half, but came out firing after the long break.
The first 10 minutes of the third term saw a complete change of fortunes with Cranbourne playmakers, led by Ryan Jones, Matt Thompson, Max Gearon and Ray George, dominating around the ground and feeding key forward Troy Tharle-Adams.
The Eagles piled on eight goals to the Burras’ two, creating a 35-point turnaround and leaving the home side with a 16-point deficit at the final change.
The battle continued in the final term until Cranbourne converted twice from free kicks to put the game out of reach of the home side.
For the victors Jones, George, Tharle-Adams (five goals) and Luke Martin were among the best players, while Roberts, Skidmore, McGuinness and Clinton King were in good form for the Burra.
On the downside for Keysborough, assistant coach Ryan Goodes left the field in the opening term with a severe cork.
Siwes praised Cranbourne’s effort to come back after half-time, but was not too critical of his side.
“We probably had our share of luck in the first half, but I was very happy with the score at half-time,” he said.
“Cranny missed a lot of scoring opportunities, but they certainly turned that around in the third quarter. Gee they were good and nothing we did worked at all.
“We covered a few of their better players, but they had some other blokes like George and Tharle-Adams who slipped under our guard.
“I was pretty happy with the fact that we kicked 17 goals and you don’t often lose when you kick that many.”