Vassiliou rises to the occasion for Magpies
NORTH Geelong captain Sam Hall has hailed the grit and determination of teammate Damian Vassiliou after the seasoned Magpie grafted an invaluable 75 to anchor his team’s 236 against South Barwon at Osborne Park.
“Vass just batted how Vass does. He just takes what’s on offer,” Hall said.
“It’s funny because he hasn’t been batting all that well at training, he doesn’t try and do anything special he just plays every ball on its merits, knocks it around and just accumulates runs.
“Other sides have commented they’d love to see their players bat the way he does.”
Vassiliou partnered with 150-game player Andrew Fergusson (46) for a 72-run union after the Swans had earlier reduced the Magpies to 3-31, with the loss of Curtly Balshaw (16), Lachlan Szponar (3) and Hall (13).
The visitors could have had the Magpies in even deeper trouble.
“They dropped Fergy (Fergusson) pretty early, but he batted really well,” Hall said.
“Fergy has probably thrown away an opportunity to make a hundred in three of the five games this year.
“He’s had 30 or 40 overs to bat and been 40 or 50 odd.”
Following the loss of the milestone player, Vassiliou then combined with the hardworking Braden Szponar (51) to carry the home side to 5-207, before spinner Matt Laffey (3-42) and paceman Nick Lynch (3-51) sparked a backhalf collapse that saw North Geelong lose 5-29.
“They bowled well today, they stuck to a plan and didn’t give us anything on leg stump or didn’t chuck it in at any stage,” Hall said.
“It was a bit of ‘to and fro’ today. They’ve obviously got a pretty strong batting line-up, so I think it’s a 50-50 game at the moment and I think they’d say the same thing.”