Kings reign at Keysborough

By Brad Kingsbury
THE return from injury of emerging star forward Tyson King, together with a cracking game from former AFL wingman Clinton King, helped Keysborough to a 49-point win over ROC in round 13 of the Casey Cardinia league at the Rowley Allen Reserve on Saturday.
The unrelated Kings led from the front early and after the Burra jumped out to a 26-point lead at the first change, the Kangaroos were resigned to chasing and playing catch-up football for the rest of the afternoon.
Keysborough had come off a three-game losing streak and needed the victory, with coach Greg Siwes leading the way in his first senior game of the season.
The young ROC side underlined its gradual improvement by outscoring its top-five opponent in a scrappy second term to trail by 17 points at half-time with Andrew Logan, Ben Tivendale and 17-year-old Neil Adams providing plenty of headaches for the Burra brains trust.
However, Keysborough composed itself after the long break with its main playmakers Shaun Daly, Clinton King and Michael Downie creating opportunities that were gleefully accepted by key forwards Tyson King, Luke McGuinnesss and Matt Freeman.
The margin blew out to 35 points at three-quarter time and the Burra cruised home to a comfortable victory in the last quarter.
Kangaroos coach Ben Delarue was disappointed with his side’s inability to lift to the level required and lamented mistakes that he said were always costly against good sides.
“It wasn’t a great game and we didn’t play anywhere near as well as we could have,” he said.
“We were second to the footy and when we did get it we couldn’t exploit (Keysborough) because our skills weren’t good enough.
“We turned the ball over too many times and you can’t do that against sides like Keysborough. I didn’t feel like we were playing good footy at any stage really.”
His Burra counterpart Greg Siwes agreed that the game could have been better, but he was happy overall with the fact that his side had again tasted success after a poor month.
“I still don’t think we played that well but I was happy to win again,” he said.
“I was also happy with Tyson King giving us a good target at half forward and our other forwards chipping in. One thing I spoke about was getting our goal kickers above six and we did that, so that was a positive.
“I’m happy with an eight-goal win and hopefully that gives us confidence to move forward.”
In other round 13 results, Doveton went down by three points to Narre Warren, Beaconsfield downed Devon Meadows by 65 points, Hampton Park was too good for Berwick by 114 points and Pakenham had a 98-point win over Tooradin.