EFNL 2024: Boronia’s Josh Begley fires off eight goals in season-opener

Boronia’s Division 2 premiership defence is off to a hot start, led by a former VFL gun kicking a bag. But he wasn’t the only one to impress ...

Josh Begley (right) celebrates one of his eight goals on Saturday. Picture: Boronia FNC

FIFTY goals last year.

Eight on Saturday.

Former AFL Bomber Josh Begley boosted Division 2 reigning premier Boronia to an opening-round victory, sinking Lilydale 16.16 (112) to 9.6 (60).

Four first-half majors from Begley helped the Hawks to an 11-point lead at the half before extending the margin to 30 at the final change.

The match also marked Lilydale’s first outing in the division following relegation at the end of last season.

Boronia senior coach Matt Clark said Begley’s bag of eight capped off a big pre-season from the former Frankston VFL star.

“He was really strong at the footy, and his workrate over the pre-season has been super,” he said.

“He’s unbelievably fit at the moment and he presented in the practice matches similarly (and) he was on the end of some really good work up the ground.

“One-on-one, he was a pretty tough match-up.”

Division 2 league medallist Mitch Mellis picked up from where he left off last season to finish among the Hawks’ best alongside best-and-fairest-winning ruckman Josh Hannon.

The pair influenced Boronia’s third-quarter charge, largely owed to a lift in winning the contested ball.

“Josh rucked really well and gave us first-use a lot of the time,” Clark said.

“Mitch’s workrate around the contest just to compete and surge the ball forward at times when it was quite tight and slippery allowed us to get the ball in, take territory and lock the ball in.

“From those repeat efforts, ‘Begs’ (Begley) was able to get on the move a couple of times and create a bit of space, and we were able to hit him up quite nicely.”

The Falcons suffered a winless season in Division 1 last year, but Clark believes their fortunes are set to shift dramatically.

“Their physicality, ability to move the ball and put us under real pressure for long periods of time was really impressive, and their ground’s quite a difficult ground to play at,” he said.

“They adjusted to it a lot better than we did – they’re going to be really hard to play, especially there.”

The Hawks were without star forward Ben Robertson – who fired off 50 goals last season – but gun recruit and ex-VFL tall Liam Whelan filled the void nicely on debut for the club, kicking two majors.

“We played him in a role that we thought at that ground would be beneficial for us – the Ben Robbo role,” Clark said.

“He was able to fill the void – really competes strong, not only at forward ball-ups and stoppages but he was able to lock the ball in deep for us.

“He’s a really strong competitor, he doesn’t get out-marked and he’s aggressive at the ball, too.

“He drew a defender which allowed people like ‘Begs’ to get those one-on-ones.”

Lilydale midfielder Riley Clausen finished among the hosts’ best following a Division 1 Team of the Year gong last season, while Mitchell De Franceschi also impressed.

The Falcons’ Andrew Chalkley, Kyan Ellis and Jarrod Thompson finished with two goals apiece.