Venue: Allen Garden Reserve, Swan Hill
Conditions: Partly cloudy, light winds, 24 degrees
In action
- Liam Anthony (21 disposals, 7 marks, 11 one percenters, 2 goals)
- Trent Dumont (26 disposals, 7 marks, 8 clearances, 1 goal)
- Ben Jacobs (42 disposals, 10 marks, 14 clearances, 4 goals, 6 tackles)
- Brad McKenzie (21 disposals, 11 marks, 1 goal)
- Eric Wallace (10 disposals, 45 hit-outs, 1 goal)
- Max Warren (23 disposals, 4 inside 50’s)
NMFC.com.au’s best: Ben Jacobs, Trent Dumont
Matchups
- Liam Anthony v Thomas Pridgeon
- Ben Jacobs v The Sherrin
- Eric Wallace v Jeremy Lambden
Story of the game
Looking for its third consecutive win, North Ballarat put the foot down early, jumping away to a 24-point quarter time lead.
Behind the efforts of Ben Jacobs, the Roosters put the game to bed. A six-goal second quarter stretched the half-time lead to 45 points.
Jacobs collected 14 disposals in the second term alone, and had 23 to the main break.
The Roosters cruised in the second half, adding another 12 goals to four to eventually run out victors by 99 points and get right back into the finals race.
Points of interest
1. After missing a week due to illness, Ben Jacobs picked up where he left off in his return. A whopping 42 disposals and four goals will have him right back in contention for a spot in the senior team to take on West Coast.
“Ben played on-ball all day. He ran really strongly through the middle and was able to find the space that Bendigo had left very well.
“He was good in close by being able to get the ball forward quickly, so it allowed the forwards a chance one-on-one.
“His goals came from a good understanding with Eric (Wallace), who put a couple right down his throat. There will be quite a few highlights this week for the tape." – Development Manager Ben Dyer
2. It was a new experience for Wallace - one of the first games in his career where his side had a large lead over the opposition. He played a large part in the demolition job, racking up an impressive 45 hit-outs.
Demonstrating his improvement from week-to-week, Wallace put in practice the lessons he learned from his duels against Frankston.
“Eric had another one of those opponents that was pretty strong but didn’t jump a lot. He was able to jump well today in the contest and really imposed himself more so than he has in the past.
“Before the strong ruckmen have tended to plant themselves and stop him in his run-up, but today he was able to time his jumps much better." – Ben Dyer
3. Coming off a strong game against Frankston, Liam Anthony was set to post another week of strong numbers, collecting eight disposals in the first quarter.
However a minor setback and some tough opposition conspired against him on this occasion.
“The hard tag is the norm now for LA. He was outworking his opponent early and then he copped a cork late in the first quarter.
“It was restricting him a bit so he spent more time forward after that. He finished with two goals and it could easily have been a couple more. He led up at the ball really well." – Ben Dyer
4. After being on the receiving end of a hard hit last week, Mitch Wilkins was unable to take part in the game due to a sore shoulder.
"They tested him (Wilkins) yesterday morning and he was still a bit restricted in his movement.
"With the bye next week we thought it was best to not take any chances and make sure he’s right to go after the state game." – Ben Dyer
Most likely call-up: Ben Jacobs
Next week: BYE – VFL state game
All match photos credit to North Ballarat FC.
