Bell Post Hill gave Belmont a football lesson at Winter Reserve on Saturday, handing the undermanned and undersized Lions a 120 point thrashing, putting a final strike through their season.
The Panthers had control of proceedings for the entire day and coach Robert May admitted he was surprised about how easily his side was able to dominate the game.
“I probably expected a more even contest really, even when we heard they had a few out,” May said. “After the first three goals our confidence got up and a lot of our match ups worked really well.”
Although Belmont went into the match as underdogs, some key players out of action really hurt the home side as they were left with little answer to the powerful Panthers trio of Justin Tarr, Andrew Venner and Brent Grgic down forward.
Bell Post Hill showed no mercy to the Lions and its superior line-up simply proved too polished and strong as they continued to pile on the goals.
May said he treated Belmont with great respect and drew on their recent performances when assessing how much potential they had.
“You only have to look back a couple of weeks to when they just lost to Bannockburn so we took as good a side as we could into the match, we definitely weren’t taking them lightly,” he said.
With the result secured by half time, the remainder of the match proved to be academic as Bell Post Hill proceeded to dominate the match.
Belmont coach Matt Murphy said he was disappointed with the eventual outcome of the match and admitted that the loss officially puts an end to the final hope of his side.
“It hurts to say it but I guess our hopes of making finals are over,” Murphy said. “Our season is far from over though and we still want to be able to shape the top five in our own way.”
“We just have to take positives out of it and it’s a bit hard to at the moment. After they got those first three goals we were chasing tail for the rest of the day and we just can’t afford to do that.”
Murphy gave special mention to debutants Mitchell Boyd and Mitchell Johnson, who battled hard after playing under 18 football in the morning, as well as Stephen Edwards who was tenacious in the forward line.
Sitting three games out of a finals position now, Murphy said his side must remain positive and continue to enjoy it’s footy.
“We’ve just got to take it one step at a time right now and try to get some boys back on the park. The laughter and the spirit is there right now it’s just a different story when it comes to game day.”
Murphy sung the praises of Bell Post Hill, claiming they were a well drilled and well coached side that will prove very tough to beat come finals time.
As always, Robert May was quick to hose down his sides premiership favouritism, acknowledging the month ahead is make or break in terms of finishing in the top three.
“We’ve got Thomson next week which we will have a look at tomorrow. We had someone down there today having a look at them,” he said.
With the winner of next weeks clash to take top spot, it is arguably the biggest match of the GDFL this year.
Last Modified on 07/07/2009 13:05