Big men fly … Sunshine’s Jess McInneny and Hoppers Crossing’s Lachlan Liddicoat contest the bounce 66239 Picture: SARAH MATRAY
By Michael Esposito
HOPPERS Crossing produced what could be season-defining performance with a gutsy 21-point win against Sunshine on Saturday.
The Warriors potentially ended Sunshine’s season with the hard-fought victory at Hogans Rd Oval, and gave its own finals aspirations a shot in the arm.
After a similarly gritty win against St Albans in round eight, the Warriors have announced themselves as finals contenders and sit sixth on the ladder, and are only behind fifth-placed Port Melbourne on percentage.
The Warriors weathered a six-goal blitz by Sunshine in the second quarter to run out deserving winners.
For Sunshine, touted as premiership contenders before the season, season 2011 is fast slipping away with the Kangaroos sitting seventh on the ladder and eight points away from the top five.
The Kangaroos squandered the chance to put early scoreboard pressure on the Warriors, who were kicking with a 2-3 goal breeze.
Fifteen minutes of dominance in the first quarter yielded just one goal, while the Warriors, against the flow of play, got their first goal through Jason Butty, which kick-started a run of four goals straight.
All of a sudden the Kangaroos went in to their shell and let Hoppers Crossing control the tempo. Their forward entries were unimaginative and the Warriors consistently chopped the ball off at half-back.
Sunshine coach Brett Jacobs implored his players to stop the cute footy and focus on getting the fundamentals right, and that’s precisely what they did after Butty kicked the first goal of the second quarter to give Hoppers a five-goal lead.
Sunshine kicked the next six goals, including two to Ben Foley, to hit the front and be four points up at half time.
Jake Trevaskis was the architect of several of Sunshine’s forward thrusts in the second quarter, and kicked the first goal of the third to give Sunshine some breathing space.
But Hoppers Crossing dug deep, and it was again Butty who delivered at the crucial time, kicking a goal to level the scores at 53 apiece.
Hoppers Crossing kicked four goals straight to regain command of the match, and it was second-string players such as Jarryd Ramsay, Lachlan Liddicoat and Jason Gianni who really stood up for the Warriors.
In a battle of attrition, Hoppers Crossing was able to quash Sunshine’s hopes early in the last quarter.
In Geelong-esque fashion, Matt Ryan, from half-back, pin-pointed a long-range pass to Tyren Montebruno who delivered it straight to Butty’s chest.
It was the cleanest passage of play all game and seemed to suggest a Warriors team with a new-found confidence in its ability.
Sunshine had one last dip to get into the game, but three gettable shots all registered behinds before Sunshine’s best player on the day Jake Allen snapped truly.
But when Hoppers Crossing captain David Mitchell soccered the ball through from point blank, the game was well and truly beyond Sunshine’s grasp.
A finals berth now seems unlikely for the Kangaroos, who have only three wins to their name, but if they win their next four games (against Port Melbourne, Altona, St Albans and Glen Orden), there will still be some hope of snagging a top five spot.
