Saints smash Raiders after quiet first quarter

It may have taken them some time to get going, but the Saints have absolutely hammered Wodonga Raider to the tune of 85 points at McNamara Reserve on Saturday. The Saints trailed by five points at quarter time, but kicked 16 goals unanswered to run over the top of the Raiders 16.8 (104) to 2.7 (19). The home side had pretty much all of the footy for the entire day, but failed to capitalise on their early chances. Once they found their goal kicking boots, Myrtleford was imperious, with six players kicking multiple goals. The Raiders were hammered at the contest, with Myrtleford finishing +32 in clearances, +53 in contested possessions, +17 for hitouts, and +26 in inside 50s. It was a shellacking. Coach Craig Millar said he was impressed with how versatile the playing group proved to be through the game. “A couple of costly skill errors led to a couple of scores, and that hurt us and got us frustrated, but we were getting a lot of the ball,” he said. “We were optimistic the tide would turn if we just kept playing, but once we got going, I was really proud of our defensive effort – I think we kept them goalless after quarter time. “From that, we were able to score and kick a reasonable score for the game. “We spoke about just building some continuity and consistency in what we were doing, and I thought the boys responded to that really well. “As the game unfolded, it gave us the opportunity to try some players in different positions, and that was pleasing too, that they were able to step up and take the load off a few of the guys who have held that for a fair amount of time now. “I was really satisfied with the weekend, it was a really good performance.” The Saints head into the split round bye in third position on the ladder, and well poised to make a charge through the final six matches before finals. “If you had said to me we’d be going into our second bye 9-3, you’d take that any day of the week,” he said. “There’s just so much more to go to work on, and while we’re doing some stuff really well, and that’s ben really pleasing, there are still some little parts of our game we want to tidy up, and we’ve got six more weeks to try and do that. “I’m rapt with the players and how hard they’re training at the moment, they’re such a driven group and our leaders do a really good job with driving those standards with them to keep wanting to keep better and fine-tune parts of their individual games. “We’re in a reasonable position.” In other matches from the weekend, the reserves enjoyed a big win 21.13 (139) to 3.5 (23), while the thirds went down 1.2 (8) to 22.14 (146). OAK FM votes: round 12 Myrtleford vs Wodonga Raiders: 5 R. Smith (Myrt), 4 S. Curtis (Myrt), 3 J. East (Myrt), 2 L. Murphy-Dale (Myrt), 1 H. Sweetman (Raid). Leaderboard: R. Smith (Myrt) 36, W. Wheeler (Yarra) 30, S. Curtis (Myrt) / S. Murray (Rov) 24.

Saints smash Raiders after quiet first quarter

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