By Marcus Uhe
An even spread of contributors across the ground is fuelling Rowville’s sensational recent run of form, according to coach Ben Wise.
No side is hotter than the Hawks in the Eastern Football League’s Premier Division, having won five in a row, following another 41-point victory against Blackburn on the road on Saturday.
A dominant first quarter, in which the Hawks kicked seven goals to their opponents’ three, established an early scoreboard advantage, before pushing the lead to close to 50 points early in the final term.
Despite missing key players to injury at different stages throughout the campaign, such as star duo Lachlan Stapleton and Connor McDonald, Wise is pleased with the growth he has seen from his midfield brigade, a group that has struck the critical equilibrium of inside and outside contributors.
“We’ve got totally different types of players going through there of size and shape and running capacity,” Wise said.
“It’s been a bit of a focus to win the contest but then work it to the outside, and get the ball from inside to outside really quickly, and use our outside run and speed and ball users.
“I feel like it’s been good all year, I just think over the last month that our midfield group as a whole has been in our best handful of players over the last couple of weeks.
“They’re learning and evolving a lot, week to week, and with personnel changes every week, it’s good that it doesn’t matter who’s in the side, people are coming in and understanding the way we want to play and how they’re executing their roles.”
The forward group have been the chief beneficiaries of the midfield supremacy, culminating in Rowville’s two highest scores of the season coming in the last fortnight, and scores of over 100 points in three of its last four outings.
But critically, there has been an even spread of players finding the goals, and less reliance on the star quality of key forward Lachlan Wynd.
Wynd, the competition’s leading goalkicker with 35 from eight appearances in brown and gold, has only added five in the last two weeks, where at times earlier in the campaign he had acted as somewhat of a one-man band.
In round five against East Ringwood, Wynd kicked five of the side’s seven goals as one of only three players to register a major that afternoon.
But in the last fortnight, two instances of nine players kicking majors has been their largest spreads of the year, including five to Maverick Taylor on Saturday afternoon.
“It hasn’t been a focus (a wider spread of goalkickers) but I guess it’s a reflection on the footy that we’re playing,” Wise said.
“Early in the year we probably weren’t moving the ball the way we wanted to, and as dominant as ‘Wyndy’ is, he was able to win the one-on-ones, (but) we weren’t moving the ball fluently enough through the middle of the deck or transitioning from half back.
“Once we picked up our game in that area around how we wanted to move the footy, that’s just opened up opportunities and we’ve had a real focus on the unrewarded running, effort and work-rate to open up space for other players, and I think having that focus has sort of brought a lot more people into the game.”
Saturday’s win could have critical bearing on the remainder of the season, having been tied for win-loss record with Blackburn at 6-3 coming into the contest.
Securing the victory moved the Hawks into second on the table, leading a pack of five sides between second and sixth on 28 points by percentage only.
Their next opponent, Vermont, is one of those sides, and shapes as another critical contest for Wise’s men, as a loss and other results going against them could see them fall to as low as fifth.
“Having the year that we had last year earned us respect, and I think sides are respecting us now and putting a lot of time into us and I think our footy has been really strong, our form has been strong, and I think even having those early losses was a bit of a learning curve for the group to show them what they needed to do under pressure.
“You look at the results and you speak to other coaches and if you have an off day by five, 10 per cent, you’re going to lose.”
