Bush Scorpions

By Peter Sweeney
IT might be the AFL seconds and Ballarat might be one of the biggest cities in Australia, but footy, thankfully, in that part of the world still has a country feel about it.
Where else in the big smoke would you get the “rival” coaches talking and laughing for 15 minutes in the middle of the ground while their teams warmed-up pre-game?
And where else in the big smoke do you get blokes walking past each other saying “g’day Bill, hello Jack” or calling each other by nicknames? And – best of all – where else in the big smoke do your hear the sound of car horns lining the oval when the host side runs out for action?
All these things – and more – happened at Ballarat’s Eureka Stadium on Saturday, when the Scorpions marched into town and plundered the booty. But that was not so much a surprise, more an expectation.
Scorpions coach Brad Gotch was buoyed by the news he heard when arriving at a sunny – but blowy – Ballarat. “Eureka,” is maybe the word Gotch used when told North Melbourne (the AFL club they are affiliated with) had taken four or five of North Ballarat’s best as ‘travellers’ to Perth for Sunday’s game with the Fremantle Dockers. The likes of Edwards, Cunnington, Garlett and Anthony were touching down in Perth when the ball was being bounced at Ballarat.
And when the Scorpion reserves were on their way to a 10-goal win – their first of the season – Gotch felt more expectation. However, games are never won by who’s in or out, or by what your seconds side does or doesn’t do.
It is won on the scoreboard – and a four goal to nil opening term had the visitors on the right course. At the first break, well respected Roosters coach Gerard FitzGerald asked his club – who have won the past three VFL premierships – for intensity and urgency, just as they had given him in the third stanza of their opening home match against the Bendigo Bombers seven days earlier.
Within a minute, FitzGerald had been given what he wanted; and five minutes later, the Roosters kicked their second. The difference was 13 points; there was a sniff in the air. It was immediately butted out.
When the half-time siren sounded, the chances of the locals were, as Bob Dylan sang, ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’. The Scorpions kicked the last six goals of the second term, it was 10 to two at the big break, and as good as over. The Scorpions defence tightened, the likes of Nicholson and Bate were moving around and the two-man razzle-dazzle team of Jetta and Lawrence was bamboozling their opponents.
Two goals in quick succession to start the second half blew the difference out to 63 points and it was purely academic now. But, the local supporters still dribbled in, paying a gold coin entry fee to support the beneficiary of the gate takings – the soup van parked at the main entrance.
To their credit, North Ballarat kicked five middle and late term goals, to add respectability and prove fight was still there. They may have taken knockout blows in the first three quarters, but the home club split the points, literally, in the last.
That’s when North Ballarat kicked 1.1, while the Scorpions kicked seven straight points.
“Yes, that was a shame … we were heading for a very good win before that,” Gotch said.
“But the breeze was a lot stronger and trickier than many thought.
“Jeremy Howe had a snap from 30 metres in the last quarter and it didn’t make the distance. We missed a lot of shots from the coaches’ box side of the ground – but the breeze was most tricky.”