By Connor Schmidtke
One of several teams chasing Mooroolbark and East Ringwood in Division One, Croydon’s win last Saturday was one of its most important as it catapulted them a game clear into third place.
Jumping clear from the mid-ladder logjam that sees seven sides separated by just three wins, the Blues 35-point victory over Bayswater helped them gain ascendancy on the rest of the competition.
The victory marked back-to-back wins for Croydon, helping them gain control back over their season after three consecutive losses before that.
The Blues were forced to earn their win against Bayswater however, leading by just two goals at the final change before kicking away in the last term.
Senior coach, Morris D’Alessandro said that some minor changes to the side after half time helped his team secure the four-points.
“We were really disappointed with the back end of the first half, we changed a few little structures up and that seemed to work for us in our forward half, so the results probably came from a little bit of a restructure.”
Holding a slender lead heading into the final term, D’Alessandro encouraged his side to keep playing aggressive in order to hold off Bayswater.
“Keep taking the game on,
“They (Bayswater) play a defensive style, sitting a few numbers behind the football and they play their gameplan well.
“It’s really hard to penetrate, so we had to try and get some quick ball movement into our forward half and get one on ones down the ground, which resulted in a number of scoring opportunities.”
D’Alessandro said the three consecutive losses, to Mooroolbark, Mitcham, and Montrose, were a real battle for his side, but they managed to take positives out of it also.
“We had some challenges within our club, suffering some injuries to some pretty key players.
“I guess there’s always a positive with that, some younger boys got some game time into them. As much as we are trying to move forward and win games, we also want to develop younger players as well.
“We found out a fair bit about some players in that period there.”
“The playing group has been amazing. With the couple of years off, their hunger has grown even more.
“The focus was this year, it looked like we were going to have a full season, that kept the boys motivated, and they were good in their preseason training.
“They kept their fitness levels really high as well, I give the full credit to the playing group.”