Kyabram district football fans were drawing comparisons between the mighty AFL rivalry between Sydney and West Coast after the competition’s two top team teams — Lancaster and Murchison-Toolamba — played a 71-all draw on Saturday.
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Last season, in round four, it was a one-point win for Murchison-Toolamba — on the back of James Lloyd kicking six of his team’s 12 goals.
That was the only occasion the teams played in season 2023, a quirk of the 18 round-13 team season, with just 11 points separating the teams (again in Murchison-Toolamba’s favour) in round eight of 2022.
They played twice more in that season, Lancaster losing a qualifying final by 27 points before winning a rain soaked grand final by 10 points three weeks later.
This year it was 10.11 for Murchison Toolamba and 11.5 to a much more accurate Lancaster — 71 points apiece.
In 2005, the Sydney Swans won its premiership in 72 years after beating the West Australian team by four points and a year later only one point separated the teams, in West Coast’s favour.
Saturday’s KDL game at Lancaster was dominated by the home team early, a 20-point lead on the back of a five-goal to two first term.
Lancaster didn’t score in the second term, in fact, the ball rarely made it into the Wombats’ front half, Murchison-Toolamba leading by six points at the long break.
The Grasshoppers held a seven point lead at three-quarter time, before the tense final quarter.
Lancaster hit the front with a tick over three minutes remaining in the game, successive goals from Tannar Cerrone (among five in a best-on-ground display from the brother of star left-footer Zac) first levelling the game and then giving the Wombats a six-point lead.
Not long after, Murchison-Toolamba goal kicking sensation James Lloyd grabbed the ball from a ball-up at the top of the goal square and snapped his fourth goal for the game to level the match.
There was no score after that and the teams trudged off the ground with two premiership points apiece.
With Avenel losing to Shepparton East on the weekend, it means they share top spot, with four wins and a draw apiece, after five rounds.
Lloyd had kicked just three goals in the game before bagging a vital fourth for the afternoon, by far his lowest return of the year.
He now has 45 goals from five games, two hauls of nine, 12 against Violet Town and 11 against Longwood, leading up to the weekend’s blockbuster.
The man assigned to Lloyd, Nicholas McAuliffe, was no newcomer to the role and would have been content with the afternoon — until that last clearance win and the ensuing goal.
McAuliffe was playing in his first game of the season, having played 35 goals in the back-to-back premiership seasons of the Wombats.
Tannar Cerrone’s five-goal haul more than doubled his season’s tally of goals (four from as many games before Saturday) as he was used as the spearhead to the attack when captain Charlie Mclay was moved further up the ground.
When Cerrone kicked his fifth to give his team the lead and Lloyd squared it up again the ball spent most of the last two minutes in the Lancaster forward half.
When the siren sounded it was on the 50-metre mark at Lancaster’s end.
Lancaster club officials couldn’t remember a draw being played for the last decade.
Murchison-Toolamba put a lot of work into star Lancaster midfielder Cameron Simpson, who kicked one goal who had Sam Mackrill for company for the entire day.
Zac Cerrone was carrying an injury into the game and started out of the goal square, before moving further afield.
Hard-nut Nicholas Kellow was the pick of the Lancaster midfielders and makeshift ruckman Coby O’Neill continued to do the job for his team in the important big man role.
Phil Carroll and Logan Demasi again led a defensive unit, which rarely puts a foot wrong in big games.
Apart from Tannar Carrone’s five goals, Noah Sewell (two) was the only other multiple goalscorer.
– Five Nagambie players kicked multiple goals in a 72-point win against Girgarre on Saturday, underlining the lack of a key forward in the Girgarre line-up.
Full forwards, or a string of goal kicking midfielders, are a pre-requisite in modern day Kyabram district league football to be a competitive unit.
Girgarre is relying on Steven Phillips (who kicked two on Saturday and has seven for the season) and Ethan Palma-Ludeman (one on the weekend and five for the season) to kick it a winning score.
In its only win of the five-week-old season there were six players who kicked two goals or more.
Compare that with the likes of Tallygaroopna, Murchison-Toolamba and Shepparton East and the contrast is obvious.
James Lloyd has 45 for Murchison-Toolamba and Sutherland has kicked 24 for Shepp East (kept goalless by his former club Avenel on Saturday).
Lancaster has four players with 10 goals or more and even seventh-ranked Stanhope has a few options to use out of the goal square.
On Saturday, Girgarre managed just three first-half goals, trailing by 51 points at the long break, then after half-time added only two majors.
They eventually lost the game 5.4 (34) to Nagambie’s 15.16 (106).
Again Girgarre’s best player was key defender, and captain, Harry Browning-Briese, while ruckman Byron Dryden and midfielder Josh Marino were also strong contributors.
The Kangaroos have the unbeaten Murchison-Toolamba next weekend and then face Merrigum, which has just two wins from five games, the following week.
– Poor kicking cost Merrigum a shot at winning a third game of the season against Longwood on Saturday, six behinds in the first and another half dozen in the third quarter, leaving it with a 10-point loss.
Merrigum had nine shots on goal, to Longwood’s four, in the first term and led by 15 points. It was not alone, however, in its inaccuracy as Longwood kicked 3.6 in the second term and closed the margin to six points at the long break.
Eventually, the teams kicked a combined 15.30, Longwood’s 8.17 (65) enough to account for the Bulldogs 7.13 (55).
Longwood led by two points at the final change and built further on that lead in the last to win its first game of the season.
It was again the Merrigum defence which led the charge, although three goals from Jake Gascoyne was almost a lone hand in attack.
Gascoyne kicked seven in the team’s win against Violet Town a week earlier and the former Kyabram goal sneak now has 16 for the season from his five games.
He has kicked two goals or more in every week to signal he is more than capable of being the spearhead of the team going forward.
On the weekend his usual partner in crime, Matthew Wild, kicked just one goal (he now has 14 for the season, including two bags of six).
Co-coach Darcy Collins and co-defender Harley Constable were the team’s two best players, while Brayden Hall kicked a goal in his best game of the year.
Kyabram Free Press and Campaspe Valley News editor