Keysborough’s Shaun Daly marks under heavy attention during the Burra’s 51-point win over Beaconsfield on Saturday. 20621 Picture: Meagan Rogers.By Brad Kingsbury
KEYSBOROUGH stomped on Beaconsfield’s final five ambitions with a heavy boot in their round 14 Casey Cardinia league clash at the Perc Allison oval on Saturday, spanking the Eagles by 51 points in an impressive exhibition of attacking football.
The Burra had 39 scoring shots to the home side’s 23 and only some wayward kicking for goal from the visitors saved the Eagles from a major embarrassment.
The match was built up by both coaches as a finals decider with the result determining whether the Burra would remain a contender for the double chance or slip out of the top five.
“The motto of the whole week was ‘three or six’ and we knew our season was on the line,” said Keysborough coach Greg Siwes.
From the opening bounce on the slippery Beaconsfield surface, Keysborough looked the goods.
The Burra won in the centre thanks largely to the superb ruck work of Shaun Witherden and sure handling of classy on-ballers Shaun Daly and Clinton King.
In a surprise move, Beaconsfield big man Kym Jones started the game at centre half back on Burra key Tyson King but lacked the mobility of his opponent and was outplayed.
Keysborough missed some early opportunities and led by only four points at quarter-time, and their goal-kicking woes became endemic in the second term, with a return of 3.10 for the quarter seeing the visitors out to a 10-point lead despite their dominance across the ground.
Wayward umpiring in the third term produced soft goals to both sides, however the Burra continued to make the play with defenders William Gayfer and Michael Downie leading the superb run out of defence, while Matthew Freeman, Luke McGuinness and Tyson King created dangerous targets inside the 50-metre arc.
The result was obvious with the Eagles trailing by 25 points at the final break and even a heartfelt Taylor spray failed to ignite the home side, which went through the motions in the last 30 minutes and lost badly in the end.
Corey Wilkinson did a fine job on Eagle star Andrew Williams, but it was the Burra which was first to the contest and much cleaner with its disposal.
After a tough month, Keysborough came away from the game with renewed confidence and a sense that, if it keeps its best players fit and firing, there was still a chance it could cause some headaches to the top teams in the finals.
Siwes was happy, saying that, excluding the goal-kicking yips in the first three quarters, the victory was among his most enjoyable as a senior coach.
“That was the second-best win I’ve had at the club outside last year’s finals win, and we played good footy,” he said.
“The ball just stuck and our skills were a lot better. We ran and ran out of defence and got rewarded for it.
“We’ll get a few back next week and that will help again, but just to play four quarters of good footy was such a positive.”
In other round 14 results, Doveton downed Devon Meadows by 60 points, Narre Warren belted Berwick by 98 points, Cranbourne beat Tooradin by 71 points and Pakenham had an 84-point win over ROC.
