By ADEM SARICAOGLU
AN improved Rockbank outfit was brave but still not good enough to get the chocolates over its rival Melton Centrals in the Riddell District Football League on Saturday.
The Rams were competitive for much of the game at McPherson Park, but a costly second term in which the Blues kicked six unanswered goals proved the difference by game’s end.
The final margin was 29 points.
“It was disappointing to start off with a loss, I think if we gave ourselves an opportunity, we could’ve won the game,” Rockbank coach Leigh Sporle said on Sunday.
“One poor quarter of football and inaccurate kicking at goal sums up the loss, I guess. That was basically it in a nutshell.”
Melton Centrals coach Brian Wheelahan told Star his side’s second-term surge was the result of his side going back to basics.
“I spoke to the group at quarter time, because we butchered the footy in the first quarter, and we had a lot of the footy,” Wheelahan said.
“But just our ball use was more precise.We lowered our eyes, and hit up targets and I thought we tore them open in the middle of the ground.”
At halftime, the Blues led by 38 points and had effectively taken all the energy out of the game, but the Rams fought back hard in the third quarter to reduce the gap down to 20 by three-quarter time.
However, with the wind blowing at the Blues’ backs in the final term, the result was never in doubt.
Sporle was very impressed with every facet of a third quarter that yielded 4.7 for Rockbank.
Everything that is, except for their accuracy.
“That third quarter, bar those shots on goal, was really good footy,” Sporle said.
“We moved the ball really well and we did see that Melton were under a fair bit of pressure at stages in that third quarter.“It was just the fact we didn’t capitalise.”
The one that did capitalise was Melton Centrals forward Adam Fenton.
His seven goals ultimately proved the difference as Rockbank struggled to convert when it mattered most.
“He’s really important to our structure,” Wheelahan said of Fenton.
“They dropped a couple (of defenders) back in the second quarter, but I thought our players were going to him at the wrong times in the first quarter.
“But once we got it in deep, he’s pretty tough to beat one on one.”
The only sour note for the Blues was a wrist injury to vice-captain and assistant coach, Shane Frederickson.
Frederickson had surgery on Sunday and will be out of action for a significant portion of the season.
