Test will give Lions a measure of season

LEOPOLD coach Guy Morphet says tomorrow’s road trip to Colac will give his side a better gauge of where it sits in the premiership race.

Chalking up wins over North Shore, Newtown & Chilwell and Grovedale, the Lions are one of the early pacesetters in a tight competition.

But Morphet believes the Tigers, regarded as a premiership contender, will provide Leopold will a true test.

“It will certainly be a good test of where we’re at, travelling down there, and it’s never an easy roadtrip but we’re certainly excited about the challenge,” he said.

The Lions are hopeful of regaining Patrick Norton (bruised hip) and Kyle Bumpstead (corked calf) after the pair missed last week’s clash against Grovedale.

Bumpstead has played a pivotal role in replacing Jack Berry, who had locked down a place in Werribee’s VFL team.

Morphet said the club was excited to see Berry earn his place in the VFL.

“We’re certainly are pleased with his development,” he said.

“We could be a little bit selfish and say we’d love him back, but for Jack’s development, it’s something that he really wanted to do when he missed out on an opportunity at Geelong.

“He probably has proven a few of his doubters wrong that he is good enough at that level.

“At GFL level, we’re always pushing people who are capable to play the best standard of footy they possible can.”

Colac is also chock full of talent and bounced back with a strong win over North Shore last week.

“They’ll be up there, they’ll be strong,” Morphet said.

“One of the Simpkin boys (Tom) going down is not great for them, but they’ve got really good talent on each line.

“You look at players like (Lochie) Veale, (Kane) Leersen, (Ryan) Monaghan and (Jake) McGuane, they’re really balanced on every line. So we’re going down there under no illusions that this will be a big challenge.

“But on the flip side, the side we’ve got, the game style we play can match Colac and hopefully we come home with a win.”

While the wins have come relatively easy for Leopold, he said the margins did not reflect the difficulty of the early rounds.

“North Shore is going to be up and about, and that was no easy game in the wet. Then to go and play Newtown on their home ground and give them a bit of a touch up was nice and even Grovey took it up to us in the first half with their pressure,” he said.

“So we haven’t had three easy games, but this week and the game against St Mary’s will give us a gauge of where we’re at.”