C_Cdoves_67258_10.jpg: Dove John Atwell and Magpie Clay Persso battle for the ball. Pictures:Donna Oates
By Mark Gullick
ROC v CRANBOURNE
CRANBOURNE maintained its perfect record with a 77-point hiding of Rythdale Officer Cardinia at Officer.
The Eagles kicked with the wind in the opening term and overpowered ROC with seven goals to one.
ROC was held in the second and fourth quarters when they had use of the wind by the stingy Eagles defence.
Cranbourne increased its 35-point half-time lead with nine second half goals.
Cranbourne coach Doug Koop was pleased with the high level of consistency he’s getting from his second-tier players.
“They have improved significantly — Johnny Frenken and Luke Martin in particular,” Koop said.
“They’re not just holding their spot, but playing really good footy. We blooded a couple of young blokes, (Matthew) Weller and (Andrew) Driscoll, and they acquitted themselves very, very well.
“The depth is an area that we looked at improving. We’ve spread far and wide to get blokes an opportunity to play senior footy and hopefully when it comes to the second half of the year, we’ll benefit from that. We probably got a little hamstrung in the finals (last year) when we got a couple of injuries to our key players.”
Weller and Driscoll, from the under 18s and reserves respectively, replaced Justin Berry (VCFL duties) and Brad Coller (injury) for the clash.
“We set targets every week and we pretty much achieved them to the letter,” Koop said.
“We were kicking against a five-goal breeze (in the second and last quarter), so we were pretty happy with both quarters, which we nearly won. Even though we didn’t play terrific, our target was to outscore them and they only beat us by a point. We were actually pretty happy with our four-quarter effort.”
The Barker brothers led Cranbourne; Nick rebounding in defence and Curtis supplying plenty of drive through the midfield.
Consistent duo Luke Martin, Matthew Rus and Troy Tharle-Adams were steady contributors.
