By JARROD POTTER
EASTERN FOOTBALL LEAGUE – round 7
POOR skills cost Noble Park dearly against EFL heavyweight Blackburn.
Injuries mounted for the Bulls, including champion midfielder/defender Stewart Kemperman, and it left Noble Park to scrounge together its best remaining 22 to take the field.
It only got worse for Noble Park’s battered and bruised contingent as Luke Mann (hamstring) and Aaron Green (concussion) left the Bulls down two men throughout the match.
The chipping, short game benefited Blackburn on both sides. When the Panthers did it, goals rained towards the Blackburn end via forwards Jake Hammond, Max Otten and Ben Fraser. When Noble Park did it, the goals kept coming for Blackburn.
Switch kicking across the defensive goals – a sacrosanct act taught to juniors from their first match – were blatantly butchered by the Bulls, leading to two courtesy goals in the third quarter before a wayward out of bounds in the final term sealed Blackburn’s win.
These goals shaped the match and halted Noble Park’s revival.
Blackburn pounced in the final term to erase all chance of a Noble Park fairy-tale comeback to seize a 29-point win.
Shayne Allan (6 goals) was exceptional up forward to provide a target at any cost for the injury-depleted Bulls while Dan Keely, Sam Monaghan and Bobby Kemperman deserve a pat on the back for exceptional efforts.
Noble Park coach Jon Knight said the mistakes have to stop for the Bulls to compete with the best in the league as the better sides relish opposition blunders.
“At that stage in the game we were two goals down then they kick two in a minute from our errors,” Knight said.
“Probably lose a bit of momentum when that happens… body language disappears and faith in your team mates gets questioned and from there a few blokes’ heads dropped which was disappointing.”
Despite sitting eighth on the EFL Division 1 ladder with a 2-4 record, Knight believes the season is still alive and the Bulls are a much better side than the results suggest.
“Skill errors are killing us,” Knight said.
“We still think we’re a good side and able to beat Blackburn but at certain times today when we got in front we didn’t stay in front because to Blackburn’s credit they pressured us more around the footy and when they got in front our heads’ dropped.”
The week off is a blessing according to Knight and Noble Park will hopefully regain some of its ammunition when it clashes with Balwyn on 7 June for its annual Queen’s Birthday weekend fixture.
