NORTH Bendigo recorded a third consecutive victory against Leitchville/Gunbower during the opening round of the Heathcote District Football Netball League season.
The Bulldogs prevailed by 35 points, inflicting the Bombers’ third loss in four games since round 18 of last season.
Both clubs had experienced some significant personnel changes during the off season with the usual comings and goings on the player roundabout, but the clash between last year’s grand finalists still promised to be the highlight of the HDFNL’s opening round.
With a good crowd in attendance, the Bulldogs and Bombers provided an almost atypical clash between the two dominant clubs in the post-Locking Bamawm United era.
From the outset the game was played at a frenetic if somewhat error ridden pace. A strong breeze favouring the southern end of the ground and a hard ground that saw the ball behave as unpredictably as only an Australian football can led to promising passages of play often coming to an untidy end as the ball eluded many with an unusual bounce or drifting out of bounds with the wind.
Added to this was opening round nerves, and it was the Bulldogs who seemed to have the greater cohesion in the early going.
With his senior side split between local and Melbourne-based players, Bombers coach Matt Hawken has done a good job of both co-ordinating and pre-season bonding between the two groups, although it soon became apparent that his players are some way off from gelling completely.
The Bulldogs played more to a team plan, with accurate switching of play from defence and a forward structure unchanged from last year, with both Brady Herdman and Sam Barnes as prominent as they had been in the September decider.
The Bombers, who were missing key recruit Sam Kennedy, trialled Steve Pretty in the key forward post and while energetic enough, the veteran defender found the going hard on the tight confines of the Atkins Street Oval.
The Bombers were fortunate to be only 10 points down at the first break thanks to some inaccurate kicking from the Bulldogs with the wind and goals to newcomers Daniel Coates and Tom German.
Mistakes had been many from both sides with the Bombers in particular struggling to clear the ball from the defensive zone with any certainty.
Still, the Bombers matched the Bulldogs for intensity and the quarter-time margin given the strong breeze suggested they had achieved a victory of sorts.
Kicking with the breeze in the second term, Leitchville/Gunbower seemed uncertain of which side of the ground to attack from.
The home side took full advantage of the Bomber indecisiveness and added two quick goals before the visitors gained some measure of composure with goals to Coates, a busy Daniel Couwenberg and youngster Jack Dye that reduced the Bulldogs’ lead to two points.
More lapses in concentration from the Bomber defence allowed two Bulldog goals late in the term and it really appeared that it was a casse of one step forward, two back for the Bombers.
As they had done in the first half, North Bombers jumped the Bombers early in the third term, kicking the first two goals, and it took some hard graft from the likes of Bart Walsh, Couwenberg and German around the stoppages to stem the flow.
Dye continued to provide the focal point up forward with some good leads and consecutive goals to the youngster, and along with another to Couwenberg, again gave the Bombers’ travelling faithful hope.
Brady Herdman’s late mark and goal though established a 20-point buffer at the last break, which did not appear insurmountable given that the Bombers would come home with the breeze and had shown in patches that their best play was capable of producing the win .
The Bulldogs negated the wind with two goals at the start of the last term with the dominant player on the ground, Blayne Ryan-Storey getting the first of his two goals for the term and another of the Bulldogs best, Jarrod Findlay adding another.
No matter what the wind strength or situation may be, the Bulldogs are hard to counter when kicking to the Social Club end of the ground.
Few teams have such a decided advantage both in terms of support and knowledge of how to play one end of the ground as North Bendigo does and once the lead stretched to beyond five goals the result appeared beyond doubt.
Hawken was philosophical about his team’s opening performance, acknowledging that North Bendigo was the more well drilled and disciplined team while recognising that his side were still learning.
“We had moments but really didn’t put it together for long enough and made too many mistakes to put North under enough pressure… their big forwards got away from us when it mattered but too play the way we did and only lose by six goals means there is plenty of scope for improvement,” he said.
Leitchville/Gunbower will play its first home game of the season this weekend, hosting preliminary finalists, Colbinabbin.
