FOR Melton South, Saturday’s derby win against Melton was as much about next year as it was about this season.
The Panthers reconfirmed their ‘best of the rest’ status, with a comfortable 16.11 (107) to 7.17 (59) victory over the Bloods at MacPherson Park on Saturday.
The highlight was a nine-goal performance from Mathew Sutton.
Click on the image below for our gallery of the big game.
The 35-year-old key forward drew level with fellow sharpshooter Dan Jordan on 65 goals for the season in the race for the Tony Lockett Medal.
Melton South coach Shane Geddes said it probably should have been 10 if not for an uncharacteristic miss late in the last quarter.
He said the Panthers were already turning their attention to 2013 and that meant delivering some good performances towards the end of this season to build momentum for next year.
“It (the match) meant a lot to Melton, and the derbies are often strange ones anyway, but we got the desired result,” he said.
“We made sure early in the game we had stamped our authority on it and from half-time onwards the game was always in our keeping.
“The margin was four goals at half-time and four goals at three-quarter-time when they had the breeze. And we finished it off pretty well.”
Neither team was particularly productive in front of goal in the first term, the Bloods finishing the quarter on 1.6 to the Panthers’ 1.4.
“I’m not sure if they missed a lot of easy goals. The pressure from our defenders was really good,” Geddes said.
That wastefulness was to eventually hurt Melton which had to contend with a headwind in the second term while protecting a two-point lead. It was to prove too tough a task, the Panthers outscoring the Bloods, five goals to one.
Melton again wasted the breeze in the third term, kicking 2.6 to Melton South’s 3.0, before the Panthers finished the match off with a seven-goals-to-three final term.
– Ballarat Courier
