Parrots continue streak
Dylan Westaway uses team-mate Matt Willcocks as a step ladder to take a great grab last Saturday against Morwell.
WINDY, wild conditions were the basis of a scrappy game in Leongatha on Saturday as the Parrots hosted Morwell.
Leongatha started the game really well in the first quarter, keeping the ball in their forward half for most of the quarter and looked convincing in their control of the play.
The home side did however miss a few scoring opportunities, putting a few out on the full, meaning the score line was less impressive that it could have been.
Inaccurate kicking aside, Leongatha still posted a five goal to zero first quarter and seemed to have the game won early.
Zak Vernon played a sensational quarter and really ran off the half back well.
Leongatha’s forwards looked dangerous with Dwayne Holt, Jake Best, Matt Willcocks and Chris Verboon all taking strong marks up front.
At the quarter time break, the game wasn’t over, but the Parrots did appear too good for Morwell.
However, Morwell slowed Leongatha’s scoring down in the second and third quarters, applying a lot more defensive pressure.
The Tigers became much more competitive at the centre bounce and managed to take the ball out and forward several times.
The Leongatha backline had been performing well until that stage, with Will Thursfield and Tas Clingan managing to clear the ball out, only letting two goals through in the first half.
The score line reflected Leongatha’s dominance, reading 58 to 18 at half time.
From the third quarter onwards, the game turned fairly scrappy and resulted in pretty even scoring for the second half.
Leongatha played a fairly poor last quarter, and allowed Morwell to kick some fairly easy goals. In turn, the Parrots missed some easy opportunities to score.
Morwell managed to beat the home side in the last quarter kicking 4 goals and 3 behinds, with the Parrots only managing to kick two majors, with six going through for minor scores.
Morwell has been a bit of a bogey side that Leongatha has struggled against for the past few seasons.
Terry Ginnane said that although the team posted a win, it was a disappointing last quarter.
“It was good to notch up a win against the Tigers; however the team struggled in the last quarter and should have won the game more easily than they did,” Mr Ginnane said.
“After the first break, the Leongatha players looked as though they were controlling the game, but never managed to put Morwell away. They were winning comfortably the whole game, but never really surged ahead like they should have done.
“At the end of the day we are not a power house team yet and we still have a lot of improvement to do. We need to start playing all quarters, not just one or two.”
Hayden Browne sat the game out with a corked thigh and Ben Geitz was out with the flu. Both players should return to the side for this week’s match against Maffra, in Maffra.
The Parrots haven’t won a game in Maffra for a long time and will have to play better to overcome the strong side.
Terry Ginnane believes that they should be able to put together some good match up’s with Maffra’s dangerous players.
“It will be the biggest match for the year so far,” he said.
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