The Inverell Saints have finished the home and away season with a convincing 86 point victory over the Muswellbrook Cats in Tamworth on Saturday. The match served as a fine tuning for the Saints as they head into the Major Semi Final next weekend at home against the Tamworth Kangaroos.
The match started in perfect football conditions on a slightly soggy Number One Oval, but it took both teams some time to get back into steam of things after a couple of weekends off. The Saints were first on the scoreboard, with old legend Dick Gleeson getting the Saints going with 3 first quarter goals. Gleeson was able to slip away from his man and also set up Chris Whitton to goal as the Saints set up a handy 29 point lead at the first change.
In the second the Cats showed they are a team that is much better than their 2010 record suggests. They fought back at the Saints, who fell asleep for a short time and allowed the Cats to kick the first of the quarter and threaten to make the match an arm wrestle. However the Saints settled, again through Gleeson and kicked the last 5 goals of the quarter to open up a commanding half time lead of 54 points.
The message out of the Saints camp at half time was to keep getting the one percenters right and to try to play some free running football, but again the Cats knuckled down and produced some quality football. The Saints had to dig deep and produced a couple of beauties to Peter Dunlop and Fraser Hughes to extend the lead even further to 74 points at the last change.
The last quarter saw both teams produce some free flowing play that went end to end very quickly. The Cats were able to throw off the Saints defense for the first time all day and more than doubled their score in the last whilst the Saints booted 4 themselves. The final margin of 86 points didn't truly reflect the competitiveness of the contest.
Gleeson finished with 5 goals in a superb display, whilst Dunlop and Whitton each finished with 3. Jono Elphick had his usual stellar game down back, whislt KJ Te Velde and Hughes were both impressive upon their return from injury.
The Saints now look forward to the Major Semi Final at Varley next weekend against the Tamworth Kangaroos.
Last Modified on 23/08/2010 09:23