Second half “win” after shocker of start
Shame about first half!
Drouin gave a Jekyll and Hyde performance at Sale on Saturday.
Shocking in the half.
Plenty to like about the second half when the Hawks outscored Sale 11 goals to seven.
But the damage for Drouin – and there had been plenty by the halfway point – had been done.
Sale won the match 19-13 to 11-6.
At half time it was 12-5 to one behind.
By that stage Drouin had struggled to get the ball into its forward 50metre area only a handful of times.
Sale was quicker, smarter and too big and strong in the forward line.
But the Magpies did have a major setback in the second quarter.
Full forward Brad Dessent, who’d booted three goals by the 10minute mark, went down with what appears to be a serious knee injury.
He’d been a thorn in Drouin’s side.
As the Hawk players trudged from the ground for the half time break it was difficult to think of how they could conjure a goal - let alone 11 - before the final siren sounded.
But it took only 20 seconds of the third quarter to change that thinking.
A rare centre clearance and a quick kick to half forward where Liam Anderson marked and converted from 45 metres the first had Drouin on board.
Two goals from Tom Barr, either side of a Sale goal, built a bit more confidence among the Hawks that were playing with more freedom than in their tentative and mistake riddled first half.
Jordan Kingi with a raking kick after a handball from an Anderson mark and Damen Healy, on the end of another quick centre clearance, brought the tally of goals to five for the term, a figure matched by Sale with two late goals.
It was still a lop-sided scoreboard – 17-7 to 5-5 at three-quarter time – but it had a much better look for Drouin than it had 30 minutes earlier.
The on-ballers, Jordan Kingi and Barr especially, started to get into the right spots to gather Bob McCallum’s hit-outs and the move of Anderson from defence to attack gave an effective target.
McCallum, downed by a heavy fit from his ruck opponent Jack Lipman just before quarter time, at last saw some reward for his good ruck work. the
He spent much of the last term at full forward with ruck back up Damien Allison putting in a solid quarter and setting up two goals.
Drouin ran in six goals in the final term to Sale’s two.
Jordan Kingi got two of them to make it four for the match and Cambell Jolly, Dan Seri, Clayton Kingi and McCallum also got on the goalkickers’ list.
Jordan Kingi was a welcome return to the side, especially with Liam Axford unavailable, but his appearances this season will be limited because of commitments with VFL club Casey’s development team.
Barr followed up his good round one performance with another excellent effort.
McCallum edged Lipman in a great contest between two that could be Gippsland’s interleague ruck combination, youngster Robbie Baker showed his is quickly adjusting to senior football, Anderson relished his move forward and David Olsen was in plenty of the action especially when they Hawks were under siege in the first half.
Sale will have fingers crossed that Brad Dessent’s knee injury isn’t as bad as it looked when he went down.
It has already lost key defender Andrew Quirk to a season ending knee injury (suffered on a basketball court).
But there is still a core of top quality players in the Magpies’ line-up such as Kane Martin, Jordan Dessent, Michel Todd, coach Shane Fife, Lipman and Chris Laverty, who were all in good touch on Saturday.