It was an aerial day for Nick Haynes, as he took a countless number of pack marks to keep the ball in possession of the Stingrays. 68844 Picture: Stewart Chambers
By Jarrod Potter
DANDENONG Stingrays will face the Eastern Ranges and their own man-mountain Jonathon Patton this weekend following their 17-point win over the Sandringham Dragons.
The Stingrays were able to knock off the second-placed Dragons, after splitting a 69-point deadlock at three-quarter time with a five-goal last-quarter to win 15.12 (102) to 14.5 (89).
Stingrays coach Graeme Yeats said the result was a “flip of the coin”, with both teams fatigued from a hard match.
“It’s a very good effort,” Yeats said. “We’re really happy getting the win.
“They’re a quality team and we were able to put a reasonably consistent effort together.
“It was a real arm wrestle, but we were able to get over them in the last couple of minutes by taking a couple of crucial marks inside 50 at the right times and that was the difference.”
Nick Haynes and Alex Benbow starred in the victory, with the former taking at least half a dozen contested marks and running hard off his grandstand-side wing at Shepley Oval, while the latter accumulated tackles at will to go with his gut-running and hard ball gets.
“Haynes was excellent,” Yeats said.
“When we pushed him up on the wing, he got some crucial clearances and took some good marks to hammer the ball inside 50 at least four times.
“His impact on the game was significant.
“Benbow was really good in the last quarter, with 13 tackles for the game.
“He has been coming into some good form as a key leader of the team.”
On the prospect of matching up against Patton, the highly-touted potential number one AFL draft pick, Yeats said the decision was still up in the air.
“No idea yet,” Yeats said. “We’ll think about it at training and talk about it all week to get the right strategy.
“We’ll probably play someone like Piva Wright or Matty Buntine on him.
“You’ve got to stop the supply and get pressure on their ball delivery to stop a big man like him.
“We’ve got two or three really good key forwards up our end as well, so it works both ways.
“They’ve got other good players too, so we’ve got to be aware of all of them.”
The turnaround for Dandenong over the last month has been remarkable, going from 10th place with a 4-7 record after their loss to the Calder Cannons in round 11, to winning four in a row that sees them a game clear in seventh place.
“A few weeks ago we were looking down the barrel of ninth, but now we’re able to feature in September,” Yeats said.
“We were top four three years in a row. That’s something we aspire to, but you just want to win enough games to get into finals.
“Recruiters are looking hard at finals and players who play well in finals, so we want to expose our players to as many opportunities as possible.”
