Drouin fades at end to lose to Wonthaggi
Drouin fourths’ Kaleb Hermansen has taken out Gippsland League’s goalkicking award in that grade.
His three goals against Wonthaggi on Saturday gave him 36 for the year, three more than Kade Ruyters (Traralgon) and Nathan Wheildon (Moe).
Warragul’s Vinnie Caia was 4th on the list with 30 goals for the season.
In the thirds, won by Lewis Noble of Traralgon with 45 goals, Warragul’s Lachlan Bambridge tied for second with Thomas Thatcher (Maffra) on 37 goals.
Another Gull, Lachlan Wilson, finished with 25 goals.
Despite missing the final two games Sale’s Brad Dessent took out the senior goalkicking with a total of 59 goals.
He headed previous winner Chris Dunne of Leongatha who kicked 40 and Bairnsdale’s Brayden McCarrey 38.
McCarrey missed the middle third of the season with a foot injury after leading the list until then.
Dan Bedggood (Maffra) and Warragul coach Ben Hughes were next best with 36 and 34 goals respectively.
In the reserves the winner was Lachlan Wright of Leongatha with a season’s total of 48 goals.
Drouin has a finals appointment next Sunday but the journey to get there has been a tale of “two seasons”.
The first 10 rounds produced seven wins and a solid position in the “five”.
The last eight rounds produced just one win, the losses including another on Saturday at home to Wonthaggi.
The game was nip and tuck for three quarters before Power stormed away in the last term.
It kicked six goals for the quarter to run away to a 14-12 to 814 victory.
Wonthaggi led by a goal after the first quarter, the Hawks came back to lead by one point at half time and then Power reestablished its onegoal lead at the threequarter time break.
However, it was all the visitors in the last quarter.
Drouin’s on-ground leaders Bob McCallum, Eddie Morris and Tom Barr were terrific and Toss Beck put in another top game but the performances of many others were spasmodic.
The Hawks have had to re-arrange their line-up to try to cover imbalances brought above by injuries and player losses.
Liam Anderson has been forced from defence, where he had settled well, into a forward role and opportunist forward Rhys Salter has had to try to fill gaps in defence.
Inclusions on Saturday were Charlie Wans for his first senior game at Drouin and youngster Charlie Bethune while fourths player Tom Evans was given an important on-ball role.
Evans did his bit as did Sam Clebney in the midfield.
Wonthaggi looked as if it might break away to a handy lead during the second quarter until something of a surge by Drouin took it to the narrowest of half time leads.
Two goals by Jackson Kos, the second a gem on the run from near the boundary, and the others by Will Collins and Cambell Jolly were mixed among some good chances that went begging.
The Hawks’ fade out in the latter part of the season was largely due to injuries with some of its top-line players missing – and some still missing – large banks of matches.
Saturday did nothing to reverse that trend with Joe Collins off the ground just before half time with what is likely to be a broken jaw.
Harry Wans out for the past two weeks, David Olsen who has played one of the past six, Nathan Guy, and Brendan Dower along with coach Jordan Kingi and Chris Robinson were key absentees on Saturday and it’s doubtful if many will be fit for Sunday’s elimination final.
Add to that the six weeks’ missed at a crucial time by star on-baller Eddie Morris, Liam Axford’s overseas medical posting and full-forward Josh Seri moving north midway through the year and it presents a difficult task to try to put a team on the ground that can match other sides, especially the co-finalists.