Sunbury’s Ballarat Football League representatives stand tall in inter-league loss to Hampden
Sunbury’s Grant Valles claimed best-on-ground honours in the Ballarat Football League’s Community Championships loss to Hampden and his Lions teammates represented their club with pride.
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Sunbury’s Grant Valles claimed best-on-ground honours on Saturday as the Ballarat Football League fell to Hampden in their Community Championships clash.
The Lions had five players in representative duties with Valles, Jack Landt, Mitch Conn and Lachlan Bramble all named in the best.
Ruckman Jayden Eales was also a strong contributor in the 74-point loss at Mars Stadium.
Hampden Football League got the early jump with a six-goal-to-nil first quarter and Ballarat never recovered.
Despite the loss Sunbury coach Travis Hodgson said the quintet could hold their head high.
“Grant Valles was clearly the best player on the ground,” he said.
“The five of them acquitted themselves quite well.
“Conn, Bramble, Eales are all 21-year-olds and Landt is 23 so to be playing at that level and impacting in that way at that age is a really good sign for the footy club.
“It makes you pretty proud as a footy club when your players represent the club in that way.”
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Sunbury claimed a last start 41-point win over North Ballarat City to even their ledger at 2-2 heading into the inter-league bye.
However, Hodgson was a little disappointed with where the club sat with a defining month ahead.
The Lions face Hodgson’s former club Bacchus Marsh away on Saturday before matches against last year’s grand finalists Melton at home, premiers East Point away and Lake Wendouree away.
“We’re probably one win behind where we wanted to be, we had the opportunity to go 3-1,” he said.
“The disappointing loss was Redan, we were just too easy to play against, they kicked 17 goals and we made a significant contribution to most of those goals.
“It might sound like we’re marking ourselves pretty hard but to play finals footy you’ve got to win more games than we lose and a 50 per cent strike rate ain’t going to cut it.
“The next month will really shape our season. We think we’re improving and if we can win on the road — we’ve lost our last nine games away — then we can validate where we’re at.”
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