By ROY WARD
NOBLE Park needed a big win over a top-three side to truly establish itself as an Eastern Football League division 1 premiership contender and on Saturday they did just that with a punishing 59-point victory over Norwood at Pat Wright Senior Oval.
Bulls key forward Brett Dore kicked five goals and proved unstoppable by the Norsemen while ruckman Vergim Faik and a host of Bulls midfielders and flankers ran and created.
CLICK HERE for our gallery of the big match.
Noble Park won the match 15.20 (110) to Norwood 7.9 (51) and may well have won by triple figures had they kicked accurately in the second half, posting only five goals after the main break.
Bulls coach Mick Fogarty called the win his side’s best win of the season.
“Our first half was outstanding,” Fogarty said. “Our ball movement, overlap and skill execution was as good as it’s been all year.”
As they did in their premiership seasons in 2010 and 2011 the Bulls ran and passed the ball in a manner which made it hard to distinguish defenders from midfielders or half forwards.
But the Bulls’ problems this season have come when they have taken their foot off the pedal or failed to convert their shots at goal.
Fogarty said the test now was to put on a repeat performance this Saturday when the Bulls visit lowly South Croydon.
“If we can bring that every week we will be a hard team to beat,” he said.
“But the key is bringing that every week. So far we have been getting away with not doing that, but we didn’t get away with it against Vermont. The key is to play like that every match.”
The Bulls played without influential midfielder and captain Craig Anderson but he is likely to return against the Bulldogs or against Balwyn a week later.
Bulls defender Jarrod Plymin injured his AC joint and will miss at least two weeks, if not more should medical tests show the injury to be more serious.
Former Bulls premiership coach Denis Knight, now coach of Norwood, said his side had plenty to work on.
“It’s the standard we’ve got to get to,” Knight said. “We got bullied; Noble Park just played a tough, uncompromising game of footy and smashed us.”
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