Out of nowhere: Buln Buln’s Charlie Park (11) takes a mark from Nilma Darnum’s Jimmy Burke (18).
ELLINBANK & DISTRICT FOOTBALL LEAGUE • Buln Buln Seniors are aiming for a third consecutive win after their 12.8-80 to 4.4-28 victory over Nilma Darnum last weekend.
First published in the Baw Baw Citizen’s 19 July 2018 print edition. Get your copy free from retailers across Baw Baw!
The win came off the team’s 17-point triumph over Neerim-Neerim South in Round 12.
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Round 14 will see Buln Buln face Catani, a team which beat them by six points in Round 5. Depite this, coach Matt Gray thinks the team is ready for redemption.
“I think we feel like Catani got over the top of us right in the last quarter out at Catani early on,” he told the Baw Baw Citizen.
“Three on the trot would be fantastic, and we’ll work toward it.”
Matt’s confidence has been fuelled by recent improvements in the team.
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“It’s a reward for effort. We haven’t been all that successful so far this year, but we’ve put two on the trot now,” he said.
“I think the boys are sticking to our systems. We’re developing, we’re a young side, so we’ll just stick with it and hopefully we can turn into better players across the journey.
“The guys are listening to instruction really well and trying to execute that instruction on the ground, and that’s really pleasing to see from a coaching perspective.”
While Buln Buln celebrated, Nilma Darnum coach Matt Shorey was left “speechless.”
“It was very frustrating,” he told the Baw Baw Citizen.
“There’s a few things that we need to look at in the next few weeks and there will be a few changes made in the senior team, no doubt about it.”
Nilma Darnum’s game wasn’t without highlights – the team began a comeback during the third quarter.
“The effort [then] was a lot better,” Matt Shorey said.
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“The pressure was on. I think that was the difference going into that last quarter – we thought we were chipping away at the score board, but at the end of the day… I’m a little bit speechless to be honest.
“It’s hard to gut knowing where we started and what we did, but injuries have shot us. It’s not an excuse, but it is at the moment. We’ve probably lost our top seven out of our 12, it does kill you.
“We’ve got belief. We’ve got belief that we’re going to get back on the road. We’ve got some hard games coming ahead, but we need to knock off a couple of them and get our season back on track.
“At the moment now it just comes down to effort.”
Elsewhere in Round 13, the scores were:
- Longwarry (19.14-128) def Catani (8.6-54) at Catani;
- Neerim-Neerim South (15.7-97) def Ellinbank (5.10-40) at Ellinbank;
- Nyora (17.14-116) def Lang Lang (3.5-23) at Lang Lang;
- Poowong (12.10-82) def Warragul Industrials (12.8-80) at Poowong.
