By JARROD POTTER
GREATER DANDENONG FOOTBALL REVIEW – WEEK 9
NOTHING warms your soul on a harsh winter’s day quite like belting out the team song.
In a monumental battle at Thomas Carroll Reserve, St John’s strengthened its grip on the VAFA Division 2 throne with a nail-biting 9.16 (70) to 7.8 (50) triumph over second placed West Brunswick.
The JOCs should’ve buried the Magpies in the first term as forward entries were racked up to little effect. Spraying their way to 4.6 at the first change, from there life became a grind for the hosts.
West Brunswick didn’t stop surging through the middle terms, putting the JOCs to the sword and narrowing the gap rapidly through Ben Kline (three goals), Chris Germon and Matt Holmes (two apiece).
With only 10 points separating the sides at the last break, St John’s coach Ben McGee pleaded with his side to retaliate and start winning the contests no matter what.
Stepping up under the final term spotlight, captain Glenn Costas showed why he was given that mantle.
He was first under every pack to fire out clean first hands in the horrendous conditions and alongside Anthony Brannan (three goals) and Corey Ely, the midfield started to drag St John’s across the line.
Aaron Thornton (one goal) was kept uncustomarily quiet through the day – mostly on account of being double and triple-teamed defensively – but booted the match-winner late in the fourth.
St John’s inaccuracy in front of goals left West Brunswick with slim hopes, but that was soon snuffed out as Daniel Cattolico put one quickly on the boot in the forward-50. His bouncing shot was snapped up by Matt Nicholson, who cherry-picked it with a Daniel Wells’ style scissor kick on the goal-line to seal the deal and put St John’s up to nine-and-zip.
“It was a great game of footy with plenty of emotion and backwards and forwards with contested ball,” St John’s coach Ben McGee said. “They had our measure for probably two and a half quarters in regard to that battle of contested ball and at three-quarter-time we had to look at that and assess it and improve on it and that’s what we did.
“He’s (Costas) gone to another level as a player and I think the captaincy is bringing the best out of him.
While 16 behinds isn’t a pretty look on the scoreboard, McGee said the JOCs are more interested in what the opposition can muster and he is happy to let his forwards sort out a winning score.
“From an opposition point of view we do but our mantra has always been about minimising the opposition’s capacity to score – they’ve come away from today and kicked seven goals in three quarters.
“Considering they had a lot of the ball, I thought we did defend well.”
After the Queen’s Birthday bye, St John’s will host Yarra Valley OB.
In EFL results, a scoreless first term at the Bullring all but sealed Noble Park’s fate on Saturday against Doncaster. Despite a gutsy fightback, Nobel Park couldn’t deliver the finishing blow after its languid start against the Sharks. The visitors booted ahead but couldn’t deliver the kill-strike as Noble Park held on to trail by 16 at the big break. The hard inside work of Vergim Faik, Ben Giobbi – who has been short-listed for Vic Metro duties – and Kyle Martin started to turn the match around as the Noblemen booted within four points at the last change. But when the match was there to be won, the Bulls couldn’t find one last thrust, left to concede a 7.8 (50) to 7.11 (53) defeat. Noble Park battles Balwyn on Saturday with the Bulls desperately needing a win to stay in touch with the top five.
