Rays’ footy lesson stings

By Paul Pickering
LESSONS come thick and fast in TAC Cup footy, and Dandenong coach Graeme Yeats hopes his Stingrays were paying attention on Saturday.
The reigning premier Calder Cannons gave the hometown Rays a tutorial in hard-nosed football on their way to a 23-point win at Shepley Oval.
The grand final replay panned out in much the same way as the 2009 decider, with the Cannons establishing an early ascendancy and refusing to let it slip.
Calder effectively iced the game by kicking five goals to Dandenong’s one in the third term and led by 39 points at the last break, leaving the Rays to regain some respectability in the form of a belated surge in the last.
Yeats, who dished out plenty of pats on the back after his side’s first-up thumping of Gippsland the previous weekend, didn’t shy away from giving the Rays a collective clip for Saturday’s performance.
“We just didn’t have any fight in us,” he said.
“Our midfield got thrashed. We got beaten to the footy all day and our intensity was well below what it was last week.
“But to take anything away from Calder’s performance would be seriously unfair.
“They hunted us, they were quicker, used the ball better and put a lot of pressure on our ball carriers.”
The Cannons were brilliantly led by top-age stars Matt Watson (23 disposals), Tom Liberatore (26), Dion Prestia (29) and Brandyn Grenfell (five goals), while Dandenong’s experienced players struggled.
The Rays weren’t helped by the absence of AIS-AFL Academy members Luke Parker and Adam Treloar, nor a knee injury to inside midfielder Mitch Hallahan in the second term. But those were not the deciding factors in the contest.
As Yeats noted, the fact that Nathan Allen (29), Lachie Wallace (19) and Alex Benbow (13) – all under 180cm – were Dandenong’s best players suggested a distinct lack of impact from the bigger bodies.
“We try and educate our kids that they’ve got to come with a hard edge every week, but they really disappointed me,” Yeats said.
“We would have had 16 to 17 players that we identified as having poor games.”
One of the notable exceptions was first-gamer Tom Lynch, who booted four goals in a plucky debut.
Key forward Todd Elton was again impressive, while unheralded defender Jake Batchelor (19) rebounded well from half-back.
Yeats conceded that his side was probably flattered by the scoreline on Saturday, having been comprehensively outplayed.
He also vowed that a tough week on the training track would have his Rays ready to bounce back against North Ballarat on Saturday.
The match will be played from 2.30pm as part of a TAC Cup triple-header at Bendigo’s Queen Elizabeth Oval.