Southern league 2021: Springvale Districts hold out Caulfield

Wingman Mason Russell stopped a Buggy as the Demons held out an improved Caulfield at Koornang Park.

A marking contest in the Caulfield-Springvale Districts clash. Picture: Valeriu Campan

Are the Bears out of the woods?

Not quite. But they’re seeing the clearing.

To judge from Round 1, pre-season talk about Caulfield being one of the big improvers in the Southern league this year proved to be close to the mark.

It pushed the strong Springvale Districts all the way in the season-starter at Koornang Park on Saturday, making a run at the Demons in the last quarter before falling 9.10 (64) to 8.9 (57).

Coach Chris O’Keefe said a “drop-off’’ in the third quarter cost his new-look team.

“We were happy with how we started off … we were extremely competitive in the first half … but for a 10 or 12-minute of that third quarter we fell away a little bit and you can do that like a side against Springvale Districts,’’ he said.

“You just can’t. They kicked three or four goals. We’d been in front and then all of a sudden we were 15, 20 points behind.

“They took their opportunities. And we had opportunities going into the breeze in the third quarter and they didn’t go our way. They defend really well, we know that. They were able to block up the game in the last quarter. We had the majority of the play but couldn’t score.’’

Caulfield Bears coach Chris O’Keefe works the huddle. Picture: Valeriu Campan

O’Keefe brought in 12 new players from his 2019 line-up, a mix of returnees and recruits: Chris Smith, Jared Worsteling, Corey Barter, Brandon Turner, Tom Heagney, Sean Gunning, Chris Dove, James Backway, Dale Lappin, Tom Bowring, Cam Vincent and Ryan Farmer.

O’Keefe said it might take his team a few weeks to show its best.

He was also mindful that Districts had played on Good Friday.

One of the newcomers, Chris Smith, kicked three goals, and Turner kept star Demons key forward Matt Wetering in check.

Springvale Districts dasher Georgie Angelopoulos.

Onballer Matt Brown, stalwart Jake Buggy and Heagney also did well.

In the third quarter Adam Read kicked three long goals for Districts, whom O’Keefe called the Division 2 “benchmark’’.

“We’ve taken a step forward to close that gap between us the top sides, but we’ve still got a long way to go, have a heap of work to do,’’ he said.

Springvale Districts coach Kris Thompson was impressed by Caulfield, saying it was capable of finishing in the top three.

“Rapt to get the win. It was a gutsy effort,’’ Thompson said.

Fit midfielder Peter Heng was again outstanding for the Demons, showing the benefits of his training with a running club before the season, and wingman Mason Russell was prominent too.

Russell brought off a run-down tackle on Buggy early in the last quarter that Thompson thought was inspiring to his team.

“It just lifted the team. It was a key play, a huge play,’’ he said.

“They (Caulfield) had the wind and Buggy got a clearance at the first centre bounce, a clean-break clearance running into an open goal, about 40m out, and Mason ran him down.

“They couldn’t come back from there.’’

Caulfield’s Sean Gunning. Picture: Valeriu Campan

Chelsea Heights, also tipped to be a riser this year, made a cracking start to the season, stitching up Heatherton 16.21 (117) to 1.6 (12).

There were two other one-sided matches: Skye defeated Hampton 8.19 (67) to 1.6 (12) and East Brighton swept past 16.15 (111) to 3.20 (20), with Nathan Foster bagging seven goals for the Vampires.

It was much tighter at Keysborough, where Hampton Park finished hard against the wind to win 11.8 (74) to 10.9 (69).

The Redbacks kicked four goals to one in the final quarter, with Peter Dye slotting three of them in similar fashion, leading hard, marking and nailing the set-shot.

Star recruit Russ Gabriel – who had 54 hit-outs, and Liam Myatt showed the way for the visitors, who gave a debut to 16-year-old Jack Wilson, the son of coach Nathan.

The Redbacks get around young Jack Wilson.

Jack had played for the Dandenong Stingrays Under 17 team the previous weekend.

He kicked a goal for Hampton Park, which had strong performers in Jackson Philpin and Josh Craig.

Tim Edwards booted five goals in the first half for Keysy, who unveiled their former AFL player Harley Balic.

The ex-Docker was handy in his first game in Southern.