Melton’s bad luck with Ballarat weather again saw it tested on Saturday as it fought off horrible conditions to overcome North Ballarat in the Ballarat Football League.
Melton has copped some bad conditions in recent seasons while on the road, including its grand final win in 2022, but Saturday was among the worse.
Coach Troy Scoble said he thought he’d seen the worst Ballarat had to offer a few weeks ago, but the conditions at Mars Stadium on Saturday took the cake.
“It was really wet, cold and windy,” he said. “We often play North Ballarat at the same time and on the same ground.
“Against Ballarat was the worst day I had experienced. This one had rain as well as we had the full weather gods.”
Scoble said the match was a real grind.
He said they were able to lead for most of the match and do enough to hold off North Ballarat, 4.5 (29)-3.6 (24).
“The conditions made it really tough,” he said. “We were efficient inside 50 in the first half.
“We fell behind by a point in the last quarter but we were able to get a goal with six minutes to go after leading pretty much all day.”
Scoble said North Ballarat won a lot of the contest, but they were better both defensively and offensively in their methods.
It was all single goal kickers for the Bloods, with Lachlan Watkins, Kyle Borg and Jack Walker named their best.
The win was the Bloods first win for the month of July. It keeps them sitting in third spot.
“All the losses we’ve had this year have been under a goal,” Scoble said. “We’ve been in positions to win those games.
“Getting a win this week in a close one was important in the players’ own mindset. We learned a lot in those losses.
“A lot of players had not been in those scenarios and we hope it helps at the end of the year.”
After having 22 players out across their squads a few weeks ago, Scoble said they were starting to get their best line up back on the park.
He said a lot of younger players had been given opportunities in those absences which they wouldn’t have normally got.
“It takes some time with younger players to see how we want them to play,” Scoble said. “We’ve been missing more experienced players and we haven’t had the consistency of previous years.
“There’s seven or eight players to come back. There will be four or five available for our next game.
“We’ll work out a plan to reintegrate them as we don’t want to do that all at once.”
The Bloods this Saturday face Bacchus Marsh.
The fifth placed Cobras come into the match on the back of a 10.11 (71)-6.3 (39) loss to East Point.
Elsewhere Darley beat Lake Wendouree, 24.20 (164)-5.11 (41).
