SWAN Hill secured their second straight 11-point victory, beating Tooleybuc-Manangatang in wet conditions at Manangatang at the weekend.
The visitors slowly opened up a matchwinning 33-point lead by the last quarter, only to see it quickly whittled away by the fast-finishing Saints with five last-quarter goals pulling the margin back by the final siren.
Swan Hill joint coach Matthew Wade was quick to praise his players post-match, with the Swans lifting themselves into eighth place on the ladder over the past fortnight to get something out of their disappointing season.
“We’ve been really looking forward to these last two weeks – we had Balranald in our sights and then we knew playing Tooleybuc-Manangatang up at Manang was never going to be an easy win, but we believed we had the capability of stringing a couple of wins together,” Wade said.
“It’s a good run in for us to Kerang to finish of our season off.”
Swan Hill dominated much of the play either side of half-time, with 18 scoring shots to the Saints’ eight, but were unable to put the home side away, kicking 11 behinds in the process.
Wade also praised his opposition’s pressure around the footy as a reason for the inaccuracy.
“We controlled a lot of footy but missed a lot of goals and probably did ourselves a bit of an injustice in missing those goals and in turn not putting the game to bed a bit earlier,” Wade said.
“But, to their credit, they just kept coming at us and pushed us right to the final siren.
“I thought our back line was really good all day and won plenty of rebound footy and I think our midfield were on top for most of the day.
“Buol (Majur) and Matt Pearse did an exceptional job in the ruck, which allowed us to play Toby (Thoolen) up forward and that worked really well and allowed us to then throw Toby through the ruck in spits and spurts in the second half.”
It was the performance of youngster Jarvis Keogh that impressed his coach most, however, with the former Koondrook-Barham junior having another impactful game in his first full season of senior footy.
“He’s a bit of a utility for us, which is a credit to him,” Wade said.
“We throw him across half-forward and ask him to play a centre half-forward lead-up role and he does it – and then when we get short in the middle and we throw him on to the ball and he does that superbly as well.
“He’s clean with the footy and when we needed a big body around the ball he was there.”
Wade, Xavier Moloney and Luke Phelan were all strong contributors through the middle for the visitors, while Gareth Grant and Shylo Smith did likewise for the Saints. Richard Wardle was strong for the home side, along with Brayden Pitcher up forward, who kicked a game-high five goals.
But perhaps Tooleybuc-Manangatang’s most impactful performance came from defender John Wardle, with his ability to intercept and drive his team forward a big reason for the Saints’ turnaround in the last quarter.
VOTES
3 Votes Jarvis Keogh (Swan Hill)
2 Votes Matthew Wade (Swan Hill)
1 Vote John Wardle (Tooleybuc-Manangatang)
MATCH RESULTS
TOOLEYBUC-MANANGATANG 2.1 4.2 6.5 11.5.71
SWAN HILL 3.3 5.9 10.14 11.16.82
GOALS – TOOLEYBUC-MANANGATANG – Brayden Pitcher 5, Mitch Ferrie, Johnathan Marsden 2, Shane Foley, David Kennedy 1.
SWAN HILL – Tobias Thoolen 3, Angus Monk, Tom Pontell, Matthew Wade 2, Luke Phelan, Tom Spicer 1.
BEST – TOOLEYBUC-MANANGATANG – Richard Wardle, Gareth Grant, Brayden Pitcher, Shylo Smith, Sam Morton, John Wardle.
SWAN HILL – Jarvis Keogh, Matthew Wade, Xavier Moloney, Luke Phelan, Tom Holdstock, Lachlan Joyce.
