Drysdale leaves a mark on Grubbers
OCEAN Grove coach Paul Lynch says Drysdale will cause plenty of headaches in the second half of the season as the Grubbers lick their wounds following Saturday’s thrashing.
Lynch was full of praise for the rejuvenated Hawks, who shocked the competition and put a serious dent in Ocean Grove’s top-three hopes with the 60-point win.
“They’re a good side, Drysdale,” Lynch said.
“I watched them when they were pretty good against Portarlington and they’ve had a lot of injuries, too.
“They recruited pretty well before the start of the season, and I know they were expected to go better than they have, but they haven’t had a lot of luck.
“Against Portarlington, Port kicked the first two and then Drysdale kicked the next 24 straight, so they’re a good side. They’ve got a lot of good footballers running around and we just couldn’t match up.”
The loss had significant fallout for Lynch’s side, who slipped a game and considerable percentage outside of the top three.
The story isn’t great on the injury front either, with seven players from the Torquay match ruled out of Saturday’s clash.
Andrew Jarvis, Kaiden Long, Corey Walter and Pete Hardy were absent against the Hawks, leaving the Grubbers drastically short in height.
But Lynch refused to blame injuries.
“I’ll never make injuries an excuse because Torquay’s had injuries, Drysdale’s had injuries,” Lynch said.
“That’s footy, unfortunately, and we just have to deal with it. Sometimes you have a good run, sometimes you have a bad run and that’s the way it goes.”
It was a 108-point turnaround from Round 5 at Mortimer Oval, when Ocean Grove belted Drysdale by 48 points.
“That comes down to player personnel,” Lynch said.
“They had a lot of different players on the field to when they played us last time. They were a very good side. (Matt) Hebbard, (Daniel) Jull and Mitch Scott are very good footballers.
“They’ve had to put up with it (injuries) for the first 10 weeks and now they’re starting to get a healthy list. The horse has bolted for them this year, but they’re going to cause problems in the last five or six games.”
With a double chance all-but shot, Lynch says his players will focus on the health of the list.
“We just have to take stock,” he said.
“We’ve been forced to play blokes who shouldn’t be playing, so we decided to give them a rest and with the bye that gives them two weeks off.
“And we’ve pretty much realised that we’re going to finish fourth or fourth. And if we’ve got any chance of going deep in the finals, we’ve got to have a healthy list.”
With the visitors streaming forward, Parish ran across a lead from the Ammos spearhead to intercept a pass, colliding with the forward as he lead up for the ball.
An ambulance was called as Parish lay concussed on