ACCORDING to the man himself, it’s little wonder Balranald co-coach Jydon Neagle is going bald, with finishes like Sunday’s elimination final when his team’s final game of the season at Greenham Park was symptomatic of their season.
A slow start saw the Roos trailing by 49 points at half-time, with their season all but over until an incredible seven-goal third quarter revived last year’s grand finalists’ finals campaign.
It has been a year of fluctuating fortunes for Balranald, who climbed into the top five after defeating Woorinen in the penultimate round of the season, with an old-fashioned half time spray from Neagle helping to sharpen his team’s focus on Sunday.
“It (Sunday) just sums up our season: we play that bad at times and can play that good as well – we just have to learn to control it,” Neagle said.
“It would have been entertaining watching on the sidelines but it wasn’t out there playing.
“Things weren’t going our way before half-time and we gave them a bit of a rev-up at the break.
“We weren’t playing how we wanted to play – we were playing safe, kicking down the line and playing into their hands.
“We weren’t locating and were letting (Joel) Helman and (Jack) Geary do as they pleased and we just asked everyone for an effort, that we were a man down and we needed to stand up.
“We felt like in between the break in play and half-time we just lifted a little bit around the contest.
“We just asked them to grind it out at half-time and that we just needed everyone to lift that five per cent extra and we felt we would get back into the contest and get our game going, which is what happened.”
That break in play came in the second quarter after an incident between Balranald defender Jaxon Neagle and Cohuna onballer Riley Hird, with Hird needing to be transported to hospital via ambulance and Neagle receiving a red card as a result.
It left both teams waiting for almost half an hour for play to restart, with Cohuna leading by 31 points at the time, which quickly became 37 points after Joel Helman received a free kick and a 50-metre penalty at the restart as a result of the incident.
It was a moment in the game that nobody liked to see, with tempers flaring both on and off the field between both clubs as a result.
“I spoke to him (Jaxon) after the game and he was very down on himself, as you would probably expect,” Neagle said post match.
“He (Jaxon) plays it hard but fair and is a fair player, but he was pretty upset after the game.
“The main concern at this point is for Riley (Hird) and his health, and everyone at our club – Jaxon especially – is just wishing him a speedy recovery.
“I spoke with Joel Helman during the break and we agreed that what had happened had happened and that both teams just wanted to get on and play the game.”
With the eight-point win now in the books, both Neagle’s and co-coach Tom Lister’s attention quickly turned to this Sunday’s match against NNW United – coincidently at Cohuna – with the former knowing his team wouldn’t get away with giving the Demons an eight-goal head start like they did Cohuna.
“We know they (NNW United) will be dangerous on that big ground,” Neagle said.
“They’re very quick and they’ll use every centimetre of it so we’ll need to be willing to stand in their way and not let them have their run.
“Depending what happens with Jaxon, the big fella (Brandyn Grenfell) up forward will be a handful and it will need to be a team effort defensively.
“If we get on top in the midfield, sort of like we did today, then he won’t have as many looks and we can go from there, but it will need to be a full-on team defence to stop them.
“We can play so bad and then so good within the same game, but we need to close that gap between our best and worst.
“We just need to come with the right attitude and play our game right from the get-go.”
