Drouin regains a place in ‘five’ with fighting win
Drouin climbed back into the “five” with a hard-fought victory at Morwell on Saturday.
The final margin was 18 points – 13-15 to 10-15 – but it was a contest that could have gone either way.
It also gave supporters plenty of value for money with the game played at a fast pace on a surface that showed no sign of having received about 75 millimetres of rain on the days leading up to the game.
The Hawks’ better conversion gave it a 5-2 to 2-6 lead at quarter time.
But there was plenty of fight in the young Morwell side that had fallen as much as 25 points behind deep into the second quarter.
Three goals in the final two-and-a-half minutes of the term had them leaving the ground for the half time break with plenty of spring in the step.
Drouin’s lead had been trimmed to seven points.
The Tigers even hit the front briefly midway through the third quarter and had not Liam Anderson got hand to ball on the goal line would also have grabbed a narrow lead during the last term.
But Drouin was able to respond to the challenges to dominate the final 20 minutes.
The Hawks, namely Bailey Beck, had chances to stretch the winning margin further in the dying moments.
Three shots by him after marks in quick succession produced just two behinds and an out of bounds.
Had Beck got a couple of them his good game all day would have been very good.
He had been a major contributor to Drouin’s early lead with two first quarter goals and setting up another as well as goal late in the third term to put his side 10 points up.
Overall it was another good team effort that saw the Hawks post win number four from seven rounds.
Rover Eddie Morris was in everything again despite some close checking, the defensive group of Anderson, Joe Collins, Brendan Dower, Nathan Guy (until injured), Harry Wans, Wayne Morris and Clayton Kingi was a formidable barrier for Morwell to penetrate.
In attack Jamie Ferguson, badly missed the previous week, Bailey Beck and Will Collins, in for his first game of the year, were lively and creative.
Bob McCallum won in the ruck, with a bit of help from Will Collins, and was a catalyst when Drouin took charge of the latter part of the match.
Liam Axford had his best game of the year, Chris Robinson was his usual reliable self, Tom Barr was back near his best on a wing, Todd Beck was also prominent and coach Jordan Kingi had a big presence especially in the second half.
Joe Collins’ check side goal from the boundary in the last quarter after drifting forward following his opponent got a threatened Drouin out to a nine-point lead.
Another goal from a fine snap by Rhys Salter got the Hawks over the line.
In what would have been a hard decision to name its best players Drouin chose Eddie Morris, Clayton Kingi, Bailey Beck, Joe Collins, Axford and Barr.
Nine players contributed goals – Bailey Beck three, Barr and Robinson two each and Todd Beck, Joe Collins, Jake Simpson, McCallum, Will Collins and Salter kicked single goals.