Sunbury on the board in the Ballarat Football League, beating Lake Wendouree

Sunbury is on the board in the Ballarat Football League after beating Lake Wendouree and coach Travis Hodgson still has finals in his sights.

Hadyn Ross in action for Sunbury. Picture: Andy Brownbill

Sunbury is on the board and has its sights set on Ballarat Football League finals.

The Lions opened their account with a convincing 41-point win over Lake Wendouree at Clarke Oval on Saturday and jump to ninth on percentage.

Coach Travis Hodgson sees plenty of similarities to last season when his team also started 1-4 before finding gear and finishing sixth, pinching what would have been a finals appearance in the last game of the season.

Sunbury hosts second-last Redan at Clarke Oval this Saturday looking to make it back-to-back wins.

Hodgson said his team had been playing good footy and it was only a matter of time before they broke through.

Mathew Medcraft in action for Sunbury. Picture: Andy Brownbill

“We didn’t talk about winning (before the game), as tempting as it was, we spoke more about the fact we’ve been playing good footy and we were building towards a win,” he said.

“I didn’t want to burden the boys with the expectation of having to win.

“We started slowly last year and we were back in the six by Round 10 so there’s plenty of time to catch up.”

Sunbury burst out of the blocks with an eight-goal first quarter to set up the 14.16 (100) to 8.11 (59) victory.

Lake Wendouree challenged the hosts in the second term, narrowing the margin to 25 points at half-time, but the Lions steadied after the break to finally sing the song.

“We were aggressive early with the ball and when they pressed up on us and challenged us in our back half we went a little safe and started chipping the ball around,” Hodgson said.

“I challenged them (at half-time), it’s OK to make mistakes playing the right way, being aggressive, so we took the game on a bit more in the third quarter and started to get through them, like we did in the first.

“Our big problem up until now, we went inside 50m in the first three rounds 34, 36 and 35 times – it makes it hard to win.

Nathan Wood in action for Sunbury. Picture: Andy Brownbill

“We’ve gone inside 48 and 51 the last two weeks, which is a massive difference, and that’s come on the back of being more aggressive with the ball and being comfortable with making mistakes.”

Enjoying a shift to the forward line, Corey Mobilio booted three goals to showcase his all-round ability.

Harrison Minton-Connell continued his impressive start to the season, collecting 30 disposals to be the Lions’ best in the win.

“Harry’s playing really good footy, he got it 30 times and went at 83 per cent.

“His stoppage work and ability to run away from stoppages, instead of just kicking out of them, is a real point of difference for him.”

Red-hot VFL goalkicker Fergus Greene made a rare appearance for Lake Wendouree and kicked three early goals.

Greene had kicked nine majors in his last two appearances for Box Hill to sit top of the goalkicking charts but was blanketed by Tom Werner in the second half.

“He’d kicked three five minutes into the second before Tom went on to him and kept him goalless from then,” he said.

“That was a terrific effort and even though the Lakers only went in 32 times but the vast majority of ball went through Green because he’s a wonderful player.

“He leading the VFL goalkicking and Tom did a great job in a fair few one-on-ones.”

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Sunbury expects to be without defender Nathan Wood for a couple of weeks after he suffered an ankle injury.

Hodgson said the team was still missing a host of key players and if it could stay in touch and get healthy would be in a good position.

“We had a lot of players out on the weekend, we had 10 we couldn’t pick and only one was at VFL and one with Calder Cannons,” he said.

“There’s a fair bit of scope if we can keep building and stay in touch our list will only get stronger as the year goes on with a bit of luck.”