That was exactly the case with Kyabram’s round 16 Goulburn Valley League match against Mooroopna on Saturday.
The Bombers had their lowest disposal count of the season, just 213 for the match, and had 31 disposals less than their fifth-ranked opposition.
Kyabram was also 100 disposals down on its season average.
So it would have been reasonable to assume the Bombers suffered their fourth defeat of the season if you had just looked at the statistics and not the scoreboard.
That was not the case and the Bombers walked away with a 19-point win, securing third spot and their 13th victory of the season.
Kyabram is now two games and significant percentage clear of fourth-ranked Euroa and is on track to face either Mansfield, or Mooroopna again, in the first week of the finals.
Mooroopna and Mansfield both have 10 wins, but the Cats have a slightly better percentage. Where the teams finish will depend on the results of this weekend’s match, when they face off against each other in the second last home-and-away round of the season.
Mooroopna has Echuca in the final round and Mansfield confronts Euroa; neither side would be marking these games in the book as wins.
Against Kyabram on Saturday the Cats finished with an extremely low disposal count of 244.
Amazingly, despite being 31 up on the Bombers in that statistical category, they had 22 fewer contested disposals than Kyabram. The Cats were also significantly down on their season-average disposal count, which is usually at 314.
Kyabram didn’t have more than 60 disposals in any of the four quarters on Saturday.
In its previous match (against Tatura) the side finished with a 377 total disposal count (an amazing 164 more than in the Cats match).
Even in its two losses to Echuca, the Bombers have returned possession counts in excess of 250, while in its other loss, against Shepparton in round 14, the side accumulated 276 disposals.
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