Drawn and quartered

It seems statistically unlikely, but it’s true – Goorambat has fought out their fifth draw of the A grade season. The Bats’ latest deadlocked result – their third in a row – came at the Milawa Recreation Reserve on Saturday, where the ladder-leading Demons were held to a split decision 42-42. With the match going largely goal for goal for long stretches, it was a game with little to no margin for error. After an evenly-paced opening term, Milawa started to pull away, taking a two-goal lead into the major break off the back of great shooting from turnovers. The Demons continued to advance but couldn’t penetrate Goorambat’s defensive set up consistently, with the Bats turning more balls than they let through. With the margin sitting at three goals with 15 minutes to go, the Bats surged, tying the scoreboard and even pulling ahead, forcing Milawa to shoot to stay level. At the end of the hour, the two teams couldn’t be separated on the scoreboard, and Goorambat coach Olivia Ryan marvelled at just how many times her side have found themselves in the same situation. “It’s funny when you say it out loud because it sounds like you’ve made it up, but we’ve had our third draw in a row and our fifth for the season - it just seems like surely a side can get up by one,” she said. “We went into the game feeling like we didn’t have a lot of depth, we had another injury last week, we’ve had two season-ending injuries so we were filling four pairs of shoes. “The expectations weren’t to come out and dominate, it was to come out and play our game, what we’ve been working on at training. “It’s something I need to work on coaching-wise with my girls – not so much being aware of the time, but knowing we were in control of that game, be able to slow it and take some time off, rather than feeling like we’re the side rushing with it. “Our defensive end, we would’ve had three turnover opportunities in the last quarter to advance a lead, and we just can’t manage to control it in our attacking end with that scoreboard pressure yet, resulting in a draw every time.” Despite not taking the full allotment of points on offer since round 11, the Bats have now tied with the current top three teams of Milawa, Whorouly and Tarrawingee, a sure sign they’ll be red-hot contenders come finals. “It’s been good for us to have these games coming into finals, hopefully we can learn something from it and continue to keep developing so we’re not going to go out first final and we’ve got a chance,” Ryan said. “You definitely notice these other sides that are so used to these high-pressure situations and find themselves a little bit more composed that we are at the moment. “Our pressure across our defensive end is exceptional, we can continue to keep turning it over, we just don’t know how to convert.” In other A grade matches, Tarrawingee were nine goals too good for Bright, Greta defeated King Valley by 20 goals, Whorouly stomped Benalla All Blacks 44-21, and Moyhu downed North Wangaratta 48-15.

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