James Murphy
West Gambier 8.11 (59) d Casterton Sandford 6.5 (41)
A DOMINANT third quarter secured West Gambier an important win over Casterton Sandford on Saturday.
Round 11 of Western Border football tossed up a couple of ladder-impacting contests and none were more pivotal than the battle at Malseed Park.
Heading into the round the Cats sat in fourth place with a one-win buffer over the Roos.
However, at the end of the day West emerged 18-point victors to leapfrog the Cats and hold fourth place on percentage.
The match began as an inaccurate affair, with six missed scoring shots before Casterton opened the ledger with a goal in the second quarter.
Casterton’s Alastair McCrae slotted the next goal of the match, before youngster Charlie Jarrad followed suite to give the Cats a 19-6 point lead midway through the term.
However, West started to find its groove and a couple of late goals narrowed the margin to two points by half time.
After a scrappy first half, the Roos settled at the main break and a purple patch of five majors in the “premiership” quarter set up the win.
“I stirred the boys up a bit at half time and put a few things on the line,” West coach Daron McElroy said.
“I made a couple of little changes and it paid off.
“That third quarter probably won the game for us.”
The visitors managed just one goal during that time and trailed by 25 at the final change.
Despite some pressure from the Cats in the fourth term, the Roos held on.
A goal from Kyle Giddings out of the midfield was a highlight for the quarter and McElroy said that moment “broke the back” of the Cats.
The work from Giddings was most impressive and he never shied away from the contest to put in a best-on-ground performance through the midfield.
“It was good to see him running out of the midfield like that and kicking a goal,” McElroy said.
Young-gun Mitchell Cornolo was another standout and he joined Michael Minuzzo at the top of the scorer’s list with two goals each.
Lewis Lean stood tall in the backline and took some big marks throughout the match, while Todd McPartlan was also sturdy in defence.
Lawry Bradley-Brown and Michael Minuzzo showed their usual class on and around the ball to round out West’s best.
For the Cats it was the services of Jack Thompson which impressed most.
His work off half back was critical in intercepting the ball and moving it forward and did not go unrecognised by his coach.
In the ruck Hamish McCrae excelled again, while Dillan Carlin, Tom Foster and Diarmid Cleary were also in good form.
Heading into the final five rounds of the season, it will be a tussle for fourth place.
McElroy has confidence in his team but knows it may go down to the wire with the closeness of the middle order this year.
“We don’t mind being the underdogs and we will grind away to try and get there,” he said.
