THE Cohuna Kangas have taken revenge on the club which dumped them from last year’s finals series, with an emphatic 178-point thrashing of Balranald on the weekend.
In their first game of the season, the Kangas sent a warning to the rest of the Central Murray competition that there would be no slow start this year, with their slick ball movement and run and spread a highlight of their game.
Balranald went into the match somewhat undermanned without Colin Andrews, Ben Fuller, Ariki Lowe and Kaleel Ross, but it was all one way traffic from the outset, with the Kangas defence resolute in restricting the Roos two just two behinds for the afternoon.
The 26.24 (180) to 0.2 (2) final score was a drubbing in anybody’s language, but despite the ease with which the Kangas secured the four points, senior coach Jack Geary was still impressed with the way in which his team performed.
“It was just good to move the ball the way we did,” Geary said post-match.
“We kind of did what we liked a bit towards the end, but we still had defenders and pressure on us so we were able to get a bit of an idea of what we want our ball movement to look like going forward.
“Obviously there will be a little bit more resistance going forward against other sides, but other than a clean bill of health and a good win, there’s not a lot you take away from it.
“It was good for a couple of our boys to get their confidence up in their first outing and it was really was good for Corbin (Anderson) to hit the scoreboard.
“The only negative was that even though we had 50 scoring shots and kicked 26 goals, maybe 20 of our 24 behinds were probably gettable.
“It was just poor kicking on our behalf, it wasn’t that they were bad looks, in fact we thought we had the ball in really good spots, but unfortunately skill errors just cost us.
“Our efficiency in front of goal we will need to improve, but the fact that we had so much of the ball in our forward half meant that it was so congested also.”
Chris Anderson was dominant in the ruck opposed to the undersized Cruz Jolliffe, who battled manfully all day for the Roos.
It was Anderson’s dominance which helped give midfielders Tom Toma, Joel Helman, Ricky Monti and Jackson Williams first use of the ball, with the quartet showing early signs of forming the most damaging on-ball division in the Central Murray.
Monti was particularly impressive in his first match in purple, as was Corbin Anderson, who finished with a game high seven goals for his new club.
Balranald on the other hand were well served by the Salau brothers, Tom and Jack, with Ryan Middlebrook also finding plenty of the ball across half back throughout the four quarters.
“It’s probably hard to gauge where we are at compared to everyone else at this stage I think,” Geary said.
“They (Balranald) had a few players out, I was talking to Ben (Fuller) after the game and he said they had seven or eight players out, which doesn’t always mean their best seven or eight players, but it does mean their depth would have been tested and that definitely makes a difference.
“They (Balranald) kept trying, but their skill execution let them down at times, but in saying that we did strangle them a little bit and our pressure was really good.
“We were glad we went on with it a little bit, we spoke at half-time that we can either walk away with a comfortable 100 point win or we can go on with the job and to our boys credit, we kept at it and I thought we we’re pretty good for four quarters.”
VOTES
3 – Chris Anderson (Cohuna)
2 – Corbin Anderson (Cohuna)
1 – Joel Helman (Cohuna)
