Noble Park playmaker Craig Anderson in action for the Bulls.By Paul Pickering
NOBLE Park’s ever-inflating bubble was burst by Lilydale in Eastern Football League action at the Bullring on Saturday night.
Ironically, the Bulls’ first evening fixture of the season – scheduled to attract a bigger crowd – was played in conditions far from conducive to a footy spectacle.
The Bulls failed to adapt their free-flowing style of play to the wet conditions and were immediately jumped by an improving Demons unit.
Lilydale started with a flurry of five goals to Noble Park’s one in the first term, adding another two in the second quarter to build a 40-point lead that would prove impossible for the Bulls to charge down.
The Demons would not score another goal for the match, adding just eight behinds in the second half, but managed to stave off a final-quarter Noble Park run to win by 23 points.
In a dark night for Bulls, defenders Heath Black and Daniel Rigg were among the few shining lights, while banged-up on-baller Peter O’Brien moved as freely as he has for some weeks. Despite suffering a hefty defeat at the hands of a likely finals opponent, Bulls coach Shane Burgmann was not sounding any alarm bells.
“It was disappointing that we didn’t rise to the occasion, but they just got off to a better start in the conditions and after that it was always going to be hard,” he said. “They just controlled the ball a lot better, got more numbers to the footy and forced it forward.
“It was just one of those nights. We didn’t adapt and they caught us out.”
With a top-five berth all but sewn up, Burgmann’s Bulls are merely jockeying for positions two through five in the lead-up to the finals.
While none of the finals contenders are likely to admit it, the objective will be to avoid the mighty Vermont until deep into September.
Recent history would suggest the Bulls are as capable as anyone of knocking off the reigning premiers, and that theory will be tested this weekend.
Only a final-minute soccer goal from Vermont’s Alister Wylie stood between Noble Park and a historic victory at the Bullring in round 10, but the Bulls will be in hostile territory at the Eagles’ house of pain on Saturday.
Having gone so close to exacting revenge on its 2006 conqueror, Noble Park is viewing the clash as an opportunity to strike a telling psychological blow in the run towards September.
“We’ve been able to do it before, so there’s no reason we can’t do it again,” Burgmann said.
