MURRABIT found Wakool too fast of foot and to have too much midfield finesse in Saturday’s Golden Rivers Football League (GRFL) encounter, going down by 70 points at home.
It made for a 0-2 record to the Blues and finishing 12 clean kicks in arrears at full time was perhaps something of a shock for the local fans, if not for Murrabit co-coaches Nathan Henry and Simon Morton.
In the back half, Simon Ettershank was also working with a new-look Murrabit defence unit, as he was the only one left from the Blues’ 2012 side.
Wing work seemed to be the preferred attacking option for both teams, with boundary-hugging runs the order of the day.
They worked better for Wakool, however, and Murrabit needed numbers behind the ball early in the opening term.
The Blues at least found territorial gains coming their way via a few free kicks, but lacked that inspiring spark which Morton strived to find to quarter-time.
While Murrabit tried to get organised, Luke Kirkland kept up the six-point success, ably supported by Justin Hartshorn, who was a solid influence at the back of the midfield.
The Murrabit match-day brains trust — including Morton and Henry — were left momentarily scratching their heads in the dugout and trying to find a solution.
The Blues’ players were told in the huddle to get running and give team-mates in possession of the ball someone to kick to, but the home team’s forwards were just getting wrapped up in tackles as soon as the Sherrin entered their hands.
The Murrabit defenders would’ve been glad to temporarily see the back of Kirkland at the last change of ends, as he took another towering mark over Alec Harvey.
More of the same was the outcome of the fourth term, which saw the Hawks seal victory with consecutive six-goal quarters while restricting the Blues to a solitary major in the 27 minutes to full time.
When Reagan Hamilton joined in the six-pointer party at the 15-minute-mark, the result was obvious. But just to really rub it in — and maybe just because he could — it was left to Kirkland to stamp his superiority over Murrabit on the siren, with Harvey once more left to rue what might have been for the Blues’ revamped backline.
For more on this story see Wednesday’s edition of The Guardian (
