By ADEM SARICAOGLU
DARLEY picked up its 10th win for the year against Melton at MacPherson Park on Saturday, but three quarters of the Ballarat Football League clash didn’t quite seem to go to script.
In a heavily wind-effected game, the well-backed Devils were forced to fight it out with the Bloods, who last week revealed coach Bob Heaney will not continue his role into 2014.
Kicking into the wind, Darley could only muster 1.3 to level the scores by quarter time before kicking clear in the second term with six of the next eight goals scored.
However the Devils then went goalless in the third quarter as the Bloods forced their way back into the contest to get within seven by the final change, before Darley steadied in the final stanza with the last seven goals of the game to come away with an eight-goal win.
Darley coach Rod MacPherson told Star it took a while for his Devils to adapt to the blustery conditions on Saturday, thus explaining their dominance in the final term.
“One thing about the wind when it’s really strong (is) it’s difficult to hit up your targets and convert,” MacPherson said.
“You tend to kick a lot of long points – so it lulled out a little bit, but we learnt from experience from the first attempt going with the breeze.”
MacPherson said his side used the ball much better in the final term, and he was also keen praise the efforts of forward Rhys Ellis, who kicked all of his three goals for the game in the last quarter.
“Rhys Ellis was playing at centre-half forward and played a really outstanding quarter, so I guess that helped,” he said.
“We just learned to adapt to the conditions a bit with better ball usage going forward and some quality forward work, too.”
Jackson Lesko also ended up with three goals for Darley while Dane Grenfell managed to snare two of his own.
Tate Stone was named best-on-ground.
With just one game to come before the BFL’s finals series kicks off in two weeks’ time, MacPherson will be hoping skipper Jarrod Edwards (knee) and Shane Page (concussion/broken nose) will both be available for selection for this weekend’s road clash with Melton South.
“We’ll start to get a stronger looking team on the park,” MacPherson said.
“But that’s one thing. Names are names but most players need two or three games to get stability and form and confidence, so we’ve got those issues to work through in the next couple of weeks.”
Darley remains fifth on the ladder but could leapfrog East Point into fourth, pending other results this Saturday.
