Melton South was left to rue its kicking as North Ballarat City won a wildly inaccurate Ballarat Football League under-18.5 grand final at Eastern Oval on Saturday.
Melton South had a couple of brief rallies but couldn’t capitalise as North City won 9.20 (74) to 5.13 (43).
North City kicked 3.8 to Melton South’s 1.3 in the opening quarter, but it was South’s turn to spurn opportunities in the second.
The Panthers could only close to within 15 points by half-time in spite of creating enough chances to kick 1.5 to North City’s 1.3.
Melton South’s Jacob Thornton Gielen kicked the first goal of the third quarter with a left-foot snap to bring the margin back to nine points. Jack Morrissey was saving the day in the backline with a number of key marks and spoils.
A brawl 10 minutes into the quarter ended with Melton South’s Daniel Hillier and North City’s Liam Cullinan being yellow-carded.
North City made the better fist of both teams being a man down to pepper the goals and open the gap to 18 at the last change.
North City then enjoyed territorial dominance at the start of the last quarter and, in spite of more inaccurate kicking, still booted the first two goals of the quarter to open a match-winning lead.
Melton South rallied with back-to-back goals to close within 22 points, but the majors were hard-earned, coming in a burst in which much of the momentum was lost with wasteful kicking for goal.
Thornton Gielen was Melton South’s only multiple goalkicker with two, while Jayden Vincent, Daniel Leggett and Sean Humphries were among the better Panthers.
