By Arian Odza
Donvale have secured their second win of the 2021 Division Three season with a sluggish but hard-fought performance over the inconsistent Scoresby.
The Magpies commanded periods of the match and much of the second-half in a manner that displayed an intensity crucial and significant enough to get them the four points, holding off Scoresby to win 6.13(49) to 5.9(39).
The battle of the Magpies concluded with the final margin of ten points favouring Donvale, despite the boys in Green and Black managing just six goals for the afternoon.
Throughout the match the Magpies were having trouble breaking away and both sides were unable to dominate the scoreboard at any time.
As the intensity picked up Joshua Jordaan and Matthew Leardi were able to lift when it mattered, specifically within that third term where Donvale made most of their moves against Scoresby.
The win puts the Magpies sixth on the ladder, two points behind fifth placed Scoresby, yet Donvale do have the greater percentage.
The win for the Magpies is the second of the season and senior coach Kevin Collins, a former two-time premiership coach for the Magpies, explains that the win is significant, and it certainly boosts morale and confidence for the side before their matchup against Whitehorse this weekend.
“The win was hard fought, but there was a positive vibe, the boys were up and about after the game against a tough unit in Scoresby,” Collins said.
“We’re developing a defensive craft, now that the new (standing on the mark) rule is in and the ball is coming in quicker so we have just concentrated on our starting points and our opponents seems to have been effective on the weekend and so we were able to keep them down to a low score, so it was really a battle of defences.”
Collins states that the upcoming match against Whitehorse should be interesting and insists that Donvale need to stick to the gameplan and what is conducted in training for his side to attain the four points.
“We just need to conform to what we’ve trained and implement what we have trained, because they have had some really close games, so we need to maintain vigilance against their on ballers, so we think that it would be a really good contest.”
“There’s not so much nerves, but really excitement, because having a season off it’s really good that we’re just playing footy.”
“We have had thirty four different players play due to injury and instead of that being negative, it is positive because some of the young kids that have come through have been outstanding.”
“We just have to make sure that we present ourselves and conduct ourselves in a manner where we just comply with the team obligations.”
The Magpies are going up against a side in Whitehorse who despite showing some positive signs throughout the season, have recorded just one win in 2021.
Collins states that conversion is what the side is focusing on and being more dominant on the scoreboard for upcoming matches throughout the season.
“We have let teams stay in the game for longer than they should have because of being poor in front of goal, but we have addressed that situation and we’ve worked on that in training, but we need to increase pressure on the scoreboard but we look forward to the challenge.”
