Outnumbered: Reigning reserve grade league best-and-fairest winner Jarrad Mason responds angrily on the boundary line to a high tackle from his Avenel opponent as his Lions team lost the elimination final at Violet Town by 40 points.
Stanhope surrendered 20 goals for only the second time this season as its Kyabram District League season ended at the hand of Murchison-Toolamba in the opening week of the competition’s final series at Violet Town on Saturday.
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Not since the round-one match against Nagambie have the Lions given up 20 goals in a game, but it was the league’s leading goalkicker and a former Euroa junior star who dissected the Stanhope defence and send the Mark Adamson-coached team packing.
The Lions lost both the reserve grade and senior games on the weekend after making it to the third weekend of the finals last season.
Beanstalk Murchison-Toolamba forward, Andrew Lloyd, and his offsider Paul Fletcher kicked more than half of their team’s goals in the 20.13 (133) to 6.9 (45) result.
Lloyd’s seven-goal haul now has him on 71 goals for the season and in red-hot form that has seen him kick 47 goals in the last six weeks.
He was restricted to just two goals against Stanhope when the teams met in round 11 when Murchison-Toolamba dominated the Lions in the first half.
In that game the Grasshoppers led 44-7 at half-time, but were outscored by Stanhope two goals to one in an uninspiring second half.
Fletcher didn’t play in that game and had been cast in defensive and mid-field roles in his previous 10 games the the club.
He hadn’t kicked a goal before the weekend’s elimination final, but was the perfect spoil to Lloyd with his four goals as Murchison-Toolamaba initially struggled to shake the Lions.
Stanhope trailed by just six points at quarter-time, but after that first break its opposition kicked 18 goals to five and ran away to a 88-point win.
Considering the amount of ball that landed in the Stanhope defensive end it is no surprise two of its best players were backmen, assistant coach Adam Lovison and Lukas Hanslow attempting to stem the tide.
Busy afternoon: Stanhope senior coach Mark Adamson played in the reserve grade match on Saturday before taking control of his team against Murchison-Toolamba. He ended the afternoon with two losses and the club’s football season in mothballs.
Lovison has missed only one game this season and will challenge polished mid-fielder Nathan O’Reilly and goalkicking winger Jonathan Pearson for best-and-fairest honours.
Neither O’Reilly nor Pearson were able to re-produce their best at Violet Town for the match as ruckman Daniel Flynn ended as the Lions’ best with the support of captain Craig Emmett.
Leading goalkicker Tom Rennie added only one to his tally to finish the year with 62 goals, Rhys Smith the only multiple goalkicker for the Lions as he fell just three shy of last year’s 35 goal total.
Murchison-Toolamba will now tackle Shepparton East in a second knockout final at Nagambie on Saturday. The Eagles beat Dookie United by 39 points on Sunday in the other elimination final.
Nagambie and Lancaster face off in the other semi-final at Stanhope on Saturday.
• Ten goals were kicked in a highly entertaining first quarter reserve grade match between Stanhope and Avenel.
Stanhope added only two goals after the quarter-time break as Avenel’s defence clamped down on danger man Jayke Fisher, who had kicked two goals in the opening quarter.
Anthony Huismann did his best to inspire Stanhope, but the Lions’ season ended as the likes of Jye Patten and Alec Maguire were given limited scoring opportunities in the last three quarters.
On the run: Brad Canny leads his Avenel opponent to the ball early in the reserve grade match at Violet Town on Saturday.
