EFL 2019: North Ringwood posts first win of the Eastern Football League season

North Ringwood has engineered a form turnaround after two beltings to start the Eastern Football League season to prove it won’t be an easybeat of Premier Division.

Julian Petracca engages in a tussle. Picture: Davis Harrigan

North Ringwood has engineered a form turnaround after two beltings to start the Eastern Football League season.

The Saints’ combined losing margin across the first two rounds was 163 points, but they have shown over the past fortnight they won’t be an easybeat this Premier Division season.

North Ringwood broke through for its first win of the campaign on Saturday, handing Noble Park its first defeat of the season after a 16-point triumph at Pat Wright Senior Oval.

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The 11.12 (78) to 9.8 (62) victory followed a competitive showing against Balwyn in Round 3 when it led by eight points at three-quarter time but fell to a 10-point defeat.

North Ringwood coach Paris Harvie said the early hidings had shown his side “where the benchmark is and how much we need to improve”.

“This year will be more about our learnings from games like that,” Harvie said.

“There’ll be games where really competitive in and … games we may struggle in.

“The competition is a brutal competition. That’s the only way I can sum up Premier Division.”

Noble Park trailed by five goals at the final change and got to within 13 points in the last quarter.

But with the arrival of rain the Saints locked the match down, turning it into a scrap.

“We spoke about that at three-quarter time where we could win the game and we were in the position the week before to win the game,” Harvie said.

“We just had to make sure we closed the game out. Noble threw everything at us in the first 10 minutes and kicked the first two or three goals … to the players’ credit we persisted and worked our way through it.”

Ex-Fremantle ruckman Michael Apeness and fellow tall Jasper Rouget will return for Saturday’s clash against South Croydon.

Harvie said 2019 would continue to be a development year.

The experienced EFL mentor took the coaching reins on Boxing Day after Brett Moyle stepped down from the role in November.

“I always said this year would be a big learning year and whatever we achieve this year, we’ll be better next year for all those experiences,” he said.

“Coming in and trying to implement a new way of playing from Boxing Day onwards was hard and we understand it’s still going to take time.

“We’ll have our ups and downs, there is no doubt about it, there’s some quality teams in this competition and if you don’t come with the intent or effort then you’re going to struggle at this level.”

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