A FAST and ferocious Mallee Eagles have sent a message to the rest of the competition: beware.
The Eagles stormed into the season on their home deck with a 123-point win over a stunned Tooleybuc-Manangatang Saints.
But the scoreboard was hardly a true reflection of what was an exhibition in Lalbert savagery.
Had the Eagles been more sure in front of the sticks, the game would have been a blowout of near biblical scale with the final scorecard reading 20.19 (139) to 2.4 (16).
The opening minutes of the game were a fairly even tussle, as both sides struggled to maintain clean possession in a crosswind which persisted throughout the match.
Jacob O’Meara slotted the Eagles’ first major score of the game but was quickly answered by a goal at the other end, gifted by a dual 50 metre penalty which took the Saints from the centre-square to well within scoring range.
For the following two-and-a-half quarters, the Saints would struggle to get the ball inside their forward 50 at all, crumbling in the face of a rock solid forward press and defensive set-up from the Eagles.
Mallee Eagles co-coach Brent Macleod said after the game “it was probably six months of just um-ing and ah-ing, having sleepless nights and long trains of thought about OK, where are we at? Is this gonna be a year that we can have a really good crack at it?
“Today I think we justified those perceptions and expectations of where we are at.”
Star SANFL recruit Matt Rankine was immense, racking up possessions across the ground like an octopus in a fishtank and slotting three majors in his first game with the Eagles.
Rankine’s pace and ability to break lines, coupled with fellow recruit and ex-Tyntynder speedster Isaiah Bull, gave the Eagles the explosive outside run they’d been looking for since a bitter end to last year’s season in the preliminary final against eventual premiers NNW United.
Macleod said at the beginning of his tenure as coach the focus was on developing the Eagles’ defensive side of the game and ensuring systems and structures behind the play held up.
“Then in two years the evolution has come into our attacking game; working on our overlap, run, finding space and identifying the space as well,” he said.
“Often blokes just had that tunnel vision, going straight down the line towards goal rather than finding a different passageway to goal going laterally.”
The Eagles had no worries finding the sticks from all angles and avenues on Saturday against a Saints outfit often made look to be moving at half-speed.
After a series of sprayed set shots by the Eagles kept Tooleybuc within sniffing distance, Jack Betts medalist Connor Mcdonald tried to put his stamp on the game in the second term.
But everywhere on the ground was a swooping pack of yellow-and-blue, whose relentless forward half pressure and centre clearance dominance saw a demoralising deluge of repeat forward entries.
At half-time, the Eagles had piled on 10.11 to a scoreless Saints – save their gifted goal early in the first – and by the third term it was well and truly party time for the Lalbert boys.
Darcy Hourigan was able to find space from towering Triabunna recruit for Tooleybuc, Josh Grant, booting six goals for the dominant Eagles.
Throughout the second and third quarter, Grant’s strong intercept marking provided little more than punctuation to an otherwise one-sided flogging.
The Saints were able to find some composure in the last term as several Eagles left the ground due to cramps and injuries.
Youngster Rydar Morris had some classy moments transitioning off half-back for the Saints, but with ten minutes to go in the final term, the call was already coming from the Eagles’ box to “freeze up”.
The Saints will be left scratching their heads, all the more after their victory over the Eagles this time last year, as to whether Saturday’s romping is indicative of their team’s ability, or the Eagle’s new standing in the league.
