Old Brighton Grammarians loom as a threat in Premier B after 108- point shellacking of Caulfield Grammarians

TEMPERS briefly flare between the Tonners and Caulfield Grammarians as the Tonners kick away during the clash at Glenhuntly Oval.

VAFA Footy Caulfield Grammarians v Old Brighton. Picture: Andy Brownbill

OLD Brighton Grammarians sit third on the Premier B table and is seemingly headed for finals football with seven games remaining in the home-and-away season.

With a much-needed two-week break to enjoy ahead of their next game against local rival Hampton, the Tonners loom as one of the main challengers to undefeated St Kevins after enjoying a comfortable 108-point win over Caulfield Grammarians on Saturday.

“I think the break’s come at a good time,” coach Greg Hutchison said.

“We’ve had several injuries and at least after the break we’ll get a few players back.

“We’ve had a couple of players out as well due to unavailability and they’ll also be back after the bye so I think it’s come at a good time and our players certainly have worked pretty hard so far.”

Hutchison insists Saturday’s win wasn’t as easy as the final score suggested at Glenhuntly Oval and for at least one quarter the bottom-placed Fields took it up to Old Brighton.

However with eight goals to two in the second term, the Tonners had the game won by half-time with Nick Coroneos finishing the day on four goals and Jon Perrett (two goals) leading a dominant all-round midfield performance.

Old Brighton beat Hampton by 29 points on Anzac Day but Hutchison is well-aware that anything can happen in Premier B and will be wary of the Rovers come July 18.

“We were fortunate to beat them last time and they’re a really competitive team,” he said.

“They’ll have a few players back after the break as well — but our boys have put in a good 12 weeks of footy so we’re looking forward to the break. The boys are really committed to coming from the break fresh and energised and ready to go.”

A two-game gap separates the top four from the bottom six and leading the charge to bridge that gap is Hampton.

The Rovers are 5-6 and were favourites heading into their away clash with Mazenod, and after a quarter of play the expected outcome looked inevitable.

Eight goals to one in the opening term seemingly put the Rovers in a match-winning position but with only three more goals for the rest of the day, Mazenod was allowed back into the contest and eventually got within two goals before running out of time. Matthew Robbins finished with three goals for the Rovers while Daniel Corp was best-on-ground with two of his own.

Up in Premier Section Beaumaris has sunk to the bottom of the ladder and seems doomed for relegation — currently two and a half games away from safety.

The Sharks played host to ladder-leading St Bernards on Saturday and the Snowdogs took to the surrounds with ease, recording a very impressive 116-point win.

With no Raph Clarke to rely on courtesy of a four-week ban for striking, the Sharks slowly fell away throughout the day and were never really in with much of a sniff beyond quarter-time. In the end Beaumaris could only muster four goals for the day while giving away 21.19 (145).

Ben Jarick of Old Brighton Grammarians and Sean Stewart of Caulfield Grammarians duel in the ruck.. Picture: Andy Brownbill

ST Bedes/Mentone has worked hard to regain respect among the VAFA since falling victim to

relegation in 2014.

Now in Premier B, the Tigers had established themselves as one of the main challengers to runaway leader St Kevins and on Saturday made the dreaded trip to St Kevins College for what was a top-of-the-table clash.

By game’s end though, the Skobbers again proved their going to take some beating for the 2015 flag.

Despite a very good opening 40 minutes to the game, the Tigers couldn’t convert and were wasteful early in the second term after trailing by 13 points at quarter time.

After that, St Kevins went to work.

“In the first half of the second quarter we controlled the game but we missed our opportunities,” St Bedes coach Mick Dwyer explained.

“We had two or three opportunities to go three goals up and we missed them all and then in 10

minutes they kicked eight goals and we sort of lost our way a bit.

“We won the third quarter (by seven points) and played some pretty good footy but we fell away in the final quarter and their talls got a hold of us.

“They blew us away in the end.”

Hawthorn premiership defender Stephen Gilham did most of the damage in the Skobbers’ forward line with four goals while up the other end Tim Doherty led the way with three for the Tigers.

“It’s going to take a four-quarter performance by anyone who plays them, and you may do that and still come up short,” Dwyer said.

“We showed in Round 1, where we should’ve beaten them, that they are beatable.

“We had a reasonable group of players not play (on Saturday) but they certainly weren’t the

difference. We just need to play better for longer periods of time and we challenged them for large patches of the game but they had the ability to hurt us quickly when we dropped off.

“The result was basically done in 20 minutes in the last quarter and 10 minutes in the second

quarter, so we’ve got a bit of work to do.”

The final margin was 92 points, leaving St Bedes in fourth place ahead of the upcoming two-week VAFA hiatus.

Down the other end of the table Parkdale is in the relegation hot seat but could easily avoid the drop with a few wins on the other side of the break.

Old Melburnians at the Junction Oval was always going to be a tough ask for the Vultures and from quarter-time the final result was never in doubt.

Down by just four points at the first change, Parkdale fell away in the second term to trail by 47 at half-time and never recovered in what eventually blew out to an 87-point loss.

Nathan Peterson was one Vulture who could hold his head up high with three goals to his name.

In Division 1, Old Mentonians was disappointing away to Bulleen Templestowe, going down by 35 points after a scoreless opening term.

The game was effectively over by half-time with the hosts up by 47.

Douglas Payton was the Panthers’ best in their seventh loss for the year.

Up in Premier Section the big winner of the day was De La Salle. In Round 1 De La lost to University Blues by 33 points but this time around at Melbourne University Oval, the visitors emerged a 30-point victor.

Xavier Murphy and Hugh Nicholson each kicked three goals in what could prove a vital win, but it wasn’t enough to lift De La out of the relegation zone.

Old Xaverians goes into the fortnight-long hiatus at 5-6 after coughing up a golden opportunity to knock off a Premer Section fancy at Xavier College.

The Xavs led by 20 points in a low-scoring battle at three-quarter time but gave up five unanswered goals to Old Carey Grammarians in the final term to go down by eight points.

Collegians recent form slump continued on Saturday with a 59-point loss to Old Trinity Grammarians.

The Lions were on a four-game winning streak after starting the year slowly but have since dropped their past three games to sink down to seventh on the Premier Section ladder.

At Daley Oval against premiership-contendingTrinity, last year’s runner up fell away in the second half after trailing by just eight points at half time.

Nick Corp was again impressive with four goals and Matthew Singleton was Collegians’ best with three, but Trinity had five more goal-kickers and more contributors around the ground throughout the day.

In Premier C Old Haileyburians further cemented its place in the top four after outlasting PEGS at home.

For three quarters a classic was playing out in front of the faithful at Caulfield’s Princes Park and the Bloods led by only two points at the final change.

However, a dominant seven-goal final term aided by a four-goal haul from Corey Rich led the Bloods to their eighth win of the year.

Meanwhile over at Elsternwick Park the Wickers pulled off one of Division 2’s biggest upsets of the year against Eltham Collegians.

In what was an arm wrestle riddled with bad kicking for goal, relegation-threatened Elsternwick managed to stay ahead of the ledger by the final siren and walked away a four-point winner.

James Christie and Ben Robertson each kicked two goals, but the win wasn’t enough to lift the Wickers out of the relegation zone.

Meanwhile over at Gary Smorgan Oval AJAX produced its most complete win of the year against Fitzroy.

The Jackas kept the Lions goal-less in the first half and was able to play out the second half in cruise control on their way to a 48-point win.

Jake Lew was the star up forward with six goals while Evgeni Routman saluted with best-on-ground honours.

AJAX goes into the break in sixth spot at 5-6, two games outside the top four and two ahead of the relegation zone.

Firmly locked in the relegation zone is South Melbourne Districts — a club still searching for its first win of the season.

The Swans would have been hopeful of at least competing with Richmond Central at Kevin Bartlett Reserve but conceded 20 goals by three-quarter time and were never really in the hunt. The final margin was 48 points.

In Division 3 Albert Park suffered its third consecutive loss and did not handle the favourites tag particularly well against bottom-placed La Trobe, going down by 13 points.

Tyson Cattle kicked three goals for the Falcons but it was the six kicked by La Trobe’s Shaun Field that did the damage.

Power House also went down and remains in the relegation mix after getting outclassed by finals-bound West Brunswick to the tune of 47 points.