Grubbers starting to hit stride on long road back
IT is a long way back from 0-4, but Ocean Grove coach Pete Davey said his side showed it was “trending in the right direction” in recent weeks.
The Grubbers notched their first win of the season last week, smashing Portarlington by 152 points, but despite the breakthrough coming against another winless side, Davey said the signs were there for a revival.
“We can take a lot of confidence out of that last quarter, we started to move the footy like we trained to and how we did last year,” he said.
“We’ve been a little too direct this year, we’ve been working on changing our angles and we started to see it pay off against Portarlington. “We showed some signs against Newcomb, we highlighted a few things heading in which we were able to achieve, and while we didn’t get the win we started trending in the right direction.
“We’re a fair way back, but we’re improving each week, but it’s a big relief (to get our first win) because 0-4 makes no one feel good.”
While it was a comfortable win against Portarlington, a clash with ladder-leader Drysdale awaits Ocean Grove at home on Saturday.
Davey said the Hawks, who were coming off a 33-point win against powerhouse Torquay, would serve as a massive test for the improving Grubbers.
“They’ve got some really good top-end players on their list, but right across the board they’re really strong,” he said.
“Their top eight players are very good Bellarine players and a few are good GFL players too, but not only that, they seemed to have meshed well and they attacked the contest really hard against Torquay.
“They’ll be a really big challenge for us this week, and we can’t look past them at 1-4.
“We’re looking at the next quarter, even just the next contest, which will be really taxing mentally but we can’t look past that otherwise the season will get away from us.”