A KNEE injury to star midfielder Joel Helman has dampened an otherwise perfect weekend for the Cohuna Kangas, who climbed to second on the ladder with a four-point win over the Mallee Eagles.
The Kangas led for much of the afternoon in a contest played under finals like conditions, with neither side giving an inch all afternoon.
Although the 7.9 (51) to 6.11 (47) victory gave Cohuna their first win against a team above them on the ladder this season — it also came at a significant cost, with Helman leaving the field after clutching his knee in a rather innocuous incident in the first quarter.
Helman took no further part in the match after leaving the field assisted by trainers, with the Kangas now anxiously awaiting to see if the reigning Jack Betts medallist will be available for their finals campaign.
While the loss of their star onballer will undoubtedly hurt Cohuna’s premiership chances, it didn’t hinder their ability to find or use the ball effectively against the Eagles, with Cohuna dominating around the stoppages.
Chris Anderson continued his superb season in the ruck and had the biggest impact on the game both with his tap work around the stoppages and his ability to influence around the ground.
Not only did Anderson control the ruck and help bring teammates Tom Toma, Jackson Williams and Ricky Monti in the match, but he also won several crucial clearances himself.
Toma was particularly damaging and was second only to Anderson as the most influential player on the ground, with the midfielder racking up possessions at will and constantly causing the Eagles headaches with his sublime foot skills.
Although it proved to be a heavily contested game, with intense pressure from both teams often creating skill errors and turnovers, both the Kangas and Eagles would be disappointed with their inability to make the most of the times where they had the ascendency on the scoreboard.
Cohuna dominated possession and time in forward half in the second term, but kicked just two goals from nine scoring shots.
It was a similar story in the third quarter for the home side, who again wasted countless opportunities entering their forward 50 with wayward disposal and poor decision making seeing them register just three scoring shots.
The Kangas did manage to keep Mallee to just one solitary behind for the quarter however, with the Eagles choosing to move the ball with short passing on transition from defence.
While the Eagles struggled to move the ball forward of centre at times, they were at least finding their targets after half time as opposed to before the break, when several costly turnovers in their defensive half led to scores.
Corbin Anderson’s third goal early in the final quarter stretched the margin out to 19 points, before the Eagles began to regain the momentum as they began to take the game on and run forward with dare thanks to Darcy McGregor, Jonah Devlin and Beau Bennett.
Although the ball was camped in the Eagles’ attacking half of the ground for much of the term, they too failed to make the most of their opportunities after kicking a wasteful two goals, five behinds.
Co-coaches Brent Macleod and Harry Allen were also among the Mallee Eagles’ better players, along with defenders Clinton Cummins and Jayden Post, with post producing perhaps the Eagles’ best four quarter performance along with Devlin.
Corbin Anderson was a standout for Cohuna up forward, while William Lee played an underrated game opposed to Mallee Eagles spearhead Darcy Hourigan, with the Kangas full-back keeping the Central Murray’s leading goalkicker to just a solitary goal for the afternoon.
SCORES
| Team | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Final Score |
| Cohuna | 2.0 | 4.7 | 6.8 | 7.9 | 51 |
| Mallee Eagles | 2.4 | 5.4 | 5.6 | 6.11 | 47 |
VOTES
3 – Chris Anderson (Cohuna)
2 – Tom Toma (Cohuna)
1 – Jayden Post (Mallee Eagles)
