By Josh Ward.
It was Fairpark’s most dominant performance since joining Division 3 two years ago and they’ll look to build on it for the rest of the season.
Despite conceding the first two goals of the match early on it was all Fairpark from that point onwards, finishing as 69 point winners at Springfield Park.
Senior coach Sean Stanaton recently said that the win was the side’s most dominant performance since rejoining the division two years ago.
“I had to look at the scoreboard twice at Quarter Time, we’d kicked 46 points, it would’ve been some time since we did that in a quarter. It was a good day Saturday,” Stanton said.
“I really challenged the group around our discipline and pressure because I thought we let ourselves down in that space in Round 1. They were outstanding in that area on Saturday, I think it went a long way to helping us secure the win.”
It was Fairpark’s highest score since making the jump up to Division 3, surpassing the 100 point mark for the first time since the 2019 Division 4 Preliminary Final as well as getting a strong spread of goalkickers
Stanton was pleased with the amount of goalkickers the side had as well as their accuracy in front of goal.
“It’s probably an area we’ve struggled with in recent years, it’s something that we’ve been trying to work on, we need to generate more scoring opportunities and more goals.
“Not only to kick 17 goals and have 10 individual goal scorers we kicked fairly accurately. We’ve had plenty of games in the past where it’s been 13.17 so to kick more goals than points was pleasing.”
Ben Gilling stole the show once again up forward, kicking six goals to go with his five-goal performance against Ferntree Gully in the opening round.
“Last year towards the backend (Gilling) started to work into it. He probably had a limited preseason so to bob up and do what he’s done in two weeks of footy is really pleasing and I’d like to think he’ll continue to build and improve on that.
“He’s such a great target up forward, he’s a great person and it was good to see him get some reward. It’s a really good start”.
17-year-old Jay Rankin also had a strong performance on senior debut whilst ex-Oakleigh Chargers and Port Melbourne player Samuel Raru also put together a strong club debut game.
“(Jay) played well Round 1 of the 19s and we were looking at him, but we felt that Round 2 was the game to play him. He was outstanding, he’s such an athletic kid, quite tall, he played well in the ruck in patches on the weekend and then he went forward and kicked goals…
“(Sam)’s been outstanding in his time with us, he’s only been here a short time but he’s got great leadership qualities, quality player but more importantly he’s a ripping fella. The boys are walking to him straight away and he played unbelievably well.”
Others like the Nied brothers had strong performances in their respective areas, however Stanton was pleased with the effort that every player put in on Saturday.
“That’s probably the most pleasing part, not only did they compete really well, they contributed. If we can continue to do that we’ll be fairly competitive throughout the season.”
With the performance over the weekend and despite a disappointing Round 1 performance Stanton believes the side can improve and make some inroads in 2023.
“From what we saw on the weekend I think that just shows we’ve made some improvements and we’ve got some really good players…
“If we stay fit and sound I think we’ll certainly be competitive and hopefully push some of those teams that are higher up on the ladder.”
This coming weekend we’ll see Fairpark host Oakleigh District for the first time in the club’s history, with Stanton adding that the side was excited about taking on an unknown quantity this weekend.
“We’ve got them at home, we’re in good form and they’ll obviously want to bounce back so it’s going to make for a really good contest. They look to be really well led by Blake (Pearson) and I think it’s going to be a really tough contest.
“Hopefully we can bring what we brought last week and if we can do that we’ll certainly be in the contest against them.”