Elimination final ahead despite bad loss to Sale
Saturday locked in Drouin’s place in the Gippsland League finals but there was no cheering after the game.
The Hawks had lost to Sale 10-15 to 7-6 but is in the elimination final thanks to Maffra just holding out Wonthaggi Power.
The result also kept alive Sale’s hopes of making a late charge for 5th place and a re-match with the Hawks on Sunday week.
The Magpies have risen from the bottom of the ladder since halfway through the season.
Drouin’s defeat on Saturday, especially after a first half that was nothing if not dismal, was bad enough.
But salt was rubbed into the wounds when key forward Ben Hughes, “red carded” only 17 minutes into the game, was subsequently suspended for two matches.
The suspension will take in the elimination final as well as next week’s clash with premiership favourite Leongatha.
On Saturday a rushed behind soon after the start would be Drouin’s only score for the first half.
By the time Hughes was sent off Sale led 1-3 to 0-1.
The loss of the key forward and being reduced to 17 men for 15 minutes unsettled the Hawks that lost their way for the rest of the half.
Fundamentals such as playing in front and manning up went by the wayside.
The Hawks were also having to cope without two of its most important on-ballers Luke Duffy and Steve Ballingall nursing injuries.
Sale took advantage of Drouin’s woes to open a match-winning lead of 69 to 0-1 by half time.
And the Magpies had their chances to be even further in front.
It was a bedraggled Drouin side that trudged to the dressing rooms at half time.
But they did show some fight in the second half.
In fact they outscored Sale 6-5 to 4-6, something the Magpies wouldn’t have been overly pleased about given percentage could still decide whether they grab the fifth and final spot for the finals.
The second half had barely started when Hawk Todd Beck doubled his side’s score - to 0-2 - with a kick off the ground and then coach Bob McCallum got the first goal on the board after a strong mark in the goal square.
But the scoring dried again.
A long shot by Beck that bounced through at the 27-minute mark and a goal after the siren by Darcy Irwin had Drouin 3-3 to Sale’s 8-12 at the last change.
The Hawks added four more goals in the final term; Jacob Gown moved forward from defence getting two of them, his first goals at senior level.
But the effort was too little too late.
The Hawks’ habit this season of making slow starts eventually caught up with them.
There’d be no winning fightback this time.
Many of the Hawks’ usually dependable players were, at best, patchy.
It left a lot on the shoulders of Dan Nicholls, McCallum and Beck, who all did put in strongly for four quarters.
On-baller Liam Axford gave his best to compensate for the missing Duffy and Ballingall, as did Jordan Kingi particularly in the second half.
Cambell Jolly and Damen Healy, inclusions to cover the two injury absentees, also showed out.
There is little time for Drouin to re-group for the finals.
As well as finding a way to try to stop, or at least be competitive against, the Leongatha juggernaut next Saturday it has to do some reshaping of the forward lines to cover Hughes’ absence over the next fortnight.