Jason Cloke flies for Spotswood. 80235_09 Picture: DAMIAN VISENTINI
By MICHAEL ESPOSITO
SPOTSWOOD dealt Deer Park a lesson in Division One footy after trouncing the newly promoted Lions by 118 points at Kings Park Reserve on Saturday.
Jason Cloke booted nine goals as Spotswood confirmed its status as benchmark of the competition, forcing the Lions to lick their wounds after their 15-goal thrashing of St Albans in the first round of the Western Region Football League.
“I think that our pressure around the ball, trying to make sure that the guys were unde pressure moving the ball to their forward line, certainly helped,” Spotswood coach Chris O’Keefe said.
“We were able to stem the flow and give our backmen a chance and obviously on the flipside of that the way we moved the ball into our forward line, I was pretty pleased with that as well.”
Vice-captain Dylan Ayton was the lynchpin of Spotswood’s hard-to-crack defence.
“His workrate was enormous. He had a heap of one per centers,” O’Keefe said.
“I think he had 20 one-per centers which is something that we rate very highly. That’s certainly the highest in the last couple of years in one single game.”
It was the Lions’ first loss since 2010, after handing out so many thrashings of their own over the past 12 months and opening its 2012 campaign with a 15-goal defeat of St Albans.
Deer Park, last year’s Division Two premier, was without key players James Condos and Chris Stewart, and was simply no match for the Woodsmen, who had the game in control from the get-go.
While O’Keefe said it was impossible to gauge where the team was at after two rounds, the Woodsmen could not have asked for a better start to the season.
“You can’t really take too much out of the games at the moment. You’ve got to wait until you play everybody once and get feel for where we’re at and what lies ahead in the second half of the year.”
Woodsmen coach Chris O’Keefe said despite Deer Park had plenty of upside, despite the heavy loss.
“They looked really dangerous at times. They had plenty of the footy, they won it well and they moved the ball well,” he said.
“Obviously they had a couple of their key players missing, but that’s the just the way it is. The 22 you put out on the field have got to do the job.
“They’re certainly going to win more games than they lose.”
Spotswood: 28.9 (177) d Deer Park 8.11 (59)
Goals: Spotswood: J. Cloke 9, B. Pope 4. Deer Park: L. Cook 2, K. Klix.
Best: Spotswood: D. Ayton, J. Cloke. Deer Park: S. Buttigieg-Clarke, G. Catterall
