Handley boots five goals as Old Xaverians kick clear of Collegians
Old Xaverians was full of run after the two-week mid-season bye, kicking clear of Collegians in the third quarter to post a 43-point win.
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OLD Xaverians has made a move in its bid to return to the finals and is now in the Premier Section top four.
Matthew Handley kicked five goals as the Xavs kicked clear from Collegians at Harry Trott Oval on Saturday, eventually running away with a 43-point win.
The Xavs were full of running coming out of a “mini preseason” and never let up throughout the day, blowing the game apart in the third quarter with four unanswered goals in the third quarter after leading by 10 points at half-time.
Co-coach Pat Hawkins spoke of the importance of his side’s sixth win of the year.
“It was critical, especially as clubs are coming from the middle part of the ladder and putting pressure on the middle teams, so we need to keep pushing forward,” Hawkins said. “I thought we came out of (the two-week break) really well, we trained really hard over the three weeks and we didn’t give them a break other than the weekends so the sessions were really hard and we stuck at it.
“We trained them like it was a little mini preseason, so they were ready to go and energetic.”
Louis Denton and Michael Darvell starred around the ground but Hawkins hopes to see a few more Xavs prime movers return to the line-up in the final stretch of home-and-away games.
“Hopefully we’ll still improve,” he said.
“We’ve got a few senior players out that hope to come back in the next couple of weeks, including Luke Ball, so we think we can get a bit better as the season goes on but we just can’t get ahead of ourselves and we just need to focus on Beaumaris next week.”
Meanwhile De La Salle’s win over Old Scotch was also very important down the other end of the ladder.
De La is outside the relegation zone but percentage is all that is keeping them away from the bottom two.
Leigh Harrison and Xavier Murphy each kicked four goals as De La continued to build on tits lead over the Cardinals throughout the day at Waverley Oval.
De La — led well by Antony Forato and Aaron Kneebone in the engine room — never gave up the lead and scored a 29-point win.
In Premier B finals-bound Old Melbournians tried to become the first team to knock off St Kevins for the year.
However, a quick glance at the scoreboard at any point throughout the day at T.H. King Oval would suggest the chasing pack is still a fair way off getting anywhere near the high-flying Skobbers.
Former AFL stars Steven Salopek (four goals) and Stephen Gilham (three) again did most of the damage up forward as St Kevins continued to pile on goals through to the final siren, going on to beat the Redlegs by 86 points.
Among the best for St Kevins were Billy Kanakis, Bradley Mccann, Lachlan Nankervis and Philip Edgar.
In Division 1 Old Geelong emerged as a genuine premiership contender after becoming the first
team to beat Kew this season.
David Ennels kicked three goals was one of the Ogs’ best performers in the 13-point win at Como Park.
AN unusual sound was heard bellowing out of the home dressing rooms at Lindsay Hassett Oval around 5pm on Saturday.
Fair to say the South Melbourne Districts Football Club didn’t mind it one bit.
The Swans finally got to sing the song after winning their first game for the year in front of the faithful against local rival Elsternwick.
Max Mitchell-Russell and Jordan Heis each kicked three goals for the Swans as they fought to get ahead of the Wickers in the second half, coming from eight points down at half-time to kick nine goals to four on their way to a 16-point win.
Elsternwick’s Justin Hunter (five goals) and Ben Robertson (four) tried to halt the Swans’ momentum throughout the second half but the Wickers couldn’t hold the desperate Swans.
The win may renew South Melbourne Districts’ chances of surviving the relegation drop down to Division 3 but it is still two wins below Elsternwick and the currently safe Monash Gryphons with five more games to come.
In Division 3 Albert Park is a step closer to safety after easily accounting for finals-bound UHS-VU with an upset 53-point win at Brens Oval.
The margin was only 13 points in favour of the Falcons at half-time but with Ashely McNaughton kicking four goals and Nick Thurley (best-on-ground) providing three, Albert Park kicked clear in the second half for a very important fourth win of the year.
Power House wasn’t so lucky in its clash with Hawthorn Amateurs, going down by 11 points at Ross Gregory Oval.
The margin never strayed beyond a couple of kicks for the entire day and Power House did lead at every change by at least seven points. However the Hawks rolled over the top of the hosts in the final term with four goals to two.
AJAX kept its very slim finals hopes alive with a 10-goal win away to the Parkdale Vultures.
While still two wins behind fourth-placed Old Melburnians, the Jackas were relentless at Gerry Green Reserve with Jake Lew kicking five goals and best-on-ground Adam Caplan snaring three.
In Premier C Old Haileyburians further cemented its place in the top four with a 66-point win over Old Ivanhoe Grammarians.
John Nicolopoulos kicked four goals and former Brisbane Lions and St Kilda star Brett Voss booted three.
OLD Brighton Grammarians has risen to second on the Premier B ladder and could well be the main challenger to undefeated St Kevins.
The Tonners made it a clean sweep of local rival and newly-promoted Hampton Rovers, following up their 29-point Anzac Day win over the Rovers in Round 3 with a 41-point win at Brighton Beach Oval on Saturday.
Daniel Anthony took his season tally to 30 goals with a game-high four-goal haul as his Tonners dominated from the outset.
Old Brighton coach Greg Hutchison said it was important to come out of the two-week break with a good performance.
“We’re trying to consolidate our position in the four and there’s certainly a few more (games) along the way in the next month that will be fairly challenging but for us but we’re pretty pleased to have a win,” Hutchison said.
“We’ve still got a few players away and a few more injured so we’ll have a bit more availability over the next month but overall we’re in pretty good shape.’’
Charlie King was a standout for the Tonners with three goals while Nick Marston had good day out.
For Hampton Daniel Corp and Sam Bradford each kicked two goals with Corp also drawing praise from the coaching staff post-game.
The Rovers slipped down to seventh on the ladder after Saturday’s seventh loss for the year and are not yet safe from the drop, but are unlikely to sneak into the final four.
Meanwhile up in Premier Section Beaumaris would now need a miracle to survive the drop come season’s end.
The Sharks have not tasted victory since May and just as they did prior to the two-week break, they could not score more than 30 points and conceded three figures the other way on the road against Old Carey Grammarians.
Beaumaris could only score three goals for the day — down one on their previous output at home to St Bernards — as the hosts took the Sharks to the sword from the start with seven goals to two in the opening term.
The final margin was 87 points, leaving Beaumaris two games clear on the bottom of the ladder
A final margin of 44 points doesn’t truly reflect how hard St Bedes/Mentone had to work to beat Mazenod, according to Tigers coach Mick Dwyer.
For three quarters on Saturday the Tigers were engaged in a dogfight at Mazenod’s Central Reserve but effectively doubled their score in the final term to score their eighth win of the year.
“We were pretty rusty coming off the two-week break,” Dwyer said. “It was a grinding win but I guess we were pretty good with our effort and we did well to get going and in the end we kicked eight (goals) in the last quarter to make the scoreboard look a bit better than it probably would have.
“We did well to win, to be honest.” Tim Doherty kicked five goals and was best-on-ground alongside Paul Wintle.
“Tim’s one of our best players but he’s had some injuries this year,” Dwyer said. “We usually play him off halfback but we’ve still got a couple out and we’ve had a bit of a shake-up with our forwards so we’ve had a different forward line for a couple of weeks.
“He was really good a couple of weeks ago against St Kevins and he was the difference in getting us going (on Saturday).’’
The Tigers moved up to third on the Premier B table.
“We just need to win enough games to qualify for finals but we’ll be better after that run,” Dwyer said.
In Division
1 Old Mentonians suffered a third consecutive loss and is just one win ahead of the drop zone.
Ormond at Turner Road Reserve was never going to be an easy task for the Panthers but for three quarters an upset was brewing.
The Panthers took advantage of Ormond’s wayward kicking to lead by five points at three-quarter-time but despite an impressive five-goal effort from Dustan Mills, Ormond ran away with the game and won by 35 points.
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