REPLAYS: Northern Knights take on Bendigo Pioneers in girls/boys Coates Talent League twin bill

It was a hotly anticipated double header of Coates League action in the boys and girls between the Northern Knights and the Bendigo Pioneers. Check out both REPLAYS here.

Coates Talent League girls high-flyers Northern Knights showed off their depth in talent with a crushing 52-point success over Bendigo Pioneers.

The third-place Knights won their eighth game of the season, and fourth in a row, 54-2, in a display that shows they could cause some problems to rivals in the upcoming finals series.

And if not for some inaccurate kicking at goal - they kicked 12 behinds compared to seven goals - the margin would have been much wider.

Northern Knights v Bendigo Pioneers (girls)

PREVIEW

Bendigo Pioneers coach Danny O’Bree is eager to see the response.

The Pioneers suffered a disappointing loss to the Calder Cannons last week, where the majority of the team was out of sync.

O’Bree says the Pioneers, who take on the Northern Knights on Saturday, have an ideal opportunity to showcase their resilience as young players.

Catch the boys/girls double header LIVE and EXCLUSIVE on KommunityTV at Preston City Oval from midday.

Check the full LIVE STREAM schedule for details.

“Every player and every team has a bad day, the greatest test of character is how they respond from that,” O’Bree said.

“I think that’s all I am looking for on the day, how they respond, see what it means to them and see if they can be resilient and fight.”

Jobe Shanahan in goalkicking mode.

Shanahan plays for the Allies in the U18 Nationals.

O’Bree is pleased the Pioneers have a chance to respond against the Knights, who he feels play an excellent style of Coates League footy.

“The last couple of times we’ve played the Knights they’ve been a really tough team to play against,” he said.

“They’re really well-drilled, really bouncy, I love the way they play and that style of footy – I think they play a great brand of talent league footy.

“It’s going to be a really tough game for us and if we play like we did last week, then the result won’t be favourable.

“But we’ve been really conscious of that, we’ve been working really hard on trying to rectify that this week and we need to be a completely different team to what we were.”

O’Bree is keen to see a lot of the players who had down days respond this week but is hoping players like Jobe Shanahan and captain Dayten Uerata continue their top form.

Pioneers skipper Dayten Uerata (right) has shown he’s ‘up for the fight’.

“Jobe Shanahan had a huge carnival and we threw him back last week and he took nine intercept marks,” he said.

“He (Shanahan) went in and had some midfield time, too, and showed some awesome craft in that part of the ground, he was even sneaky enough to duck forward and kick a goal.

“Dayten Uerata has been leading this side really well and did a power of work last week, he showed an incredible resilience when his team wasn’t going well that he wasn’t up for the fight.”