General News
12 May, 2021
Tigers spread scoring load in Eagles win
SIMPSON made a positive start to life without star forward and co-coach Nick Harding on Saturday.
SIMPSON made a positive start to life without star forward and co-coach Nick Harding on Saturday.
Harding is set to spend an extended stint on the sidelines following surgery on a broken arm sustained against South Colac the previous week.
While he is expected to be sorely missed, the Tigers showed it could find alternate avenues to goal in its 19.17 (131) to 5.7 (37) win over Western Eagles.
Ten players hit the scoresheet in the victory, including seven who kicked multiple goals.
“It was our first game without Whopper – we didn’t really have him last week – but it was a good team win,” a delighted co-coach Tom Leishman said following the win.
“It’s always a tough one coming into playing a lesser side but I was happy with how everyone went.
“It was one we had to win and I thought we did everything well and we found a few different avenues to goal too obviously with Whopper out.
“We shared the load a bit more which makes us that bit less predictable.”
Lachie Hawkins and Matt Drayton both kicked three goals apiece in the victory, while Noah Ackerley, Mick Salmon, Darcy Johnstone and Aaron Harding all kicked two each.
Leishman was pleased with Hawkins performance, adding the emerging forward was ready to become the side’s focal point in Harding’s absence.
“Lachie Hawkins has been out injured the last few weeks but he gave us a great target up forward,” he said.
“I would have loved to have seen him up there with Whopper but he’ll shoulder that load and he’s showed he’s up for the challenge.”
Leishman was also pleased with the response from his playing group just seven days after a disappointing 56 point loss to South Colac.
He conceded his side’s performance “was pretty ordinary by our own standards” but said the turnaround had it confident more wins could be forthcoming, starting with Colac Imperials this Saturday.
“We looked like we were up for it and looked good early but when Whopper went down our confidence was shot a bit,” Leishman said.
“With him and Lachie out we had no target up forward and although we had similar entries to South we just didn’t convert whereas they did which was disappointing.
“To bounce back and have a good team win was good. There was lots of unselfish play and the best part was it wasn’t the main ones standing up, there wasn’t really a bad player to be honest.
“It was a good performance leading into this weekend’s Imps game. The morale is back up so hopefully we can push forward and get a few more wins on the board.”
Leishman said his side needed to defeat Imps on home turf to give its finals hopes additional merit.
“They have a couple of good wins on the board and just lost to Apollo Bay so they look to be going reasonably well,” he said.
“But if we want to be playing finals these are the games we must win.
“It’s definitely a must win and we need to knock them off if we want to do anything with our year.”