Tara Murray
Bacchus Marsh didn’t come away with the points against arch rival Darley on Saturday, but showed it isn’t that far off in the Ballarat Football League.
The young Cobras pushed the finals bound Devils at Darley Park on Saturday, with the Devils working hard to come away with an 11.10 (76)-10.4 (64) win.
Cobras coach Jason Williams said the group continues to build each week and are on the right track.
He said as a coach it was really pleasing to see how much the group love playing together.
“We are improving every week, which is good,” he said.
“We have a talented bunch of young men. Continuity has been a bit of a struggle with a lot of them in the talent league.
“Most weeks we have two to eight changes each week.
“The last couple of weeks we’ve had them [talent league players] We knew we would be better this week and we were good last week. We’re starting to see them play some really good football together.”
On Saturday, the Devils led at quarter time by 13 points and 23 at half time.
The margin was 27 points at the last break. Instead of blowing the Cobras away, the Cobras finished strong with three goals to none in the final term.
Williams said his side is best when they play with courage and are able to take the contest on.
He said while they can do that well, the issue has been getting the ball inside 50. He said on Saturday they were able to get the conversation from their forays forward.
“Going inside 50 has been hard for us,” he said.
“We moved well in the back half and get some good reward. We have a talented young forward in Joel Freeman who was able to kick five goals.
“He got others off the chain. Jack Kovacevic kicked two goals and our ruck Luke Goetz had three shots on goal.”
Goetz was named the Cobras best alongside Alex Porter.
The Devils shared the goals with five players kicking two each. Adam Azzopardi and Leigh Spiteri were the Devils best.
The Cobras remain in ninth spot with just two wins. Williams said they don’t believe the results have reflected their season.
“We played the top seven teams in the first seven rounds,” he said. “It really hurt us being 0-7 before getting our first win. It doesn’t reflect how good the team is.”
The Cobras have a bye this week before four matches in the run home.
Williams said they were confident they could add a few more wins before the season is over.
“There’s four games that we see as winnable,” he said. “Sunbury we were leading until half time last time.
“We also have Lake Wendouree, Melton South and Ballarat. We could potentially win three out of four games.
“That would end the season with five wins and that is good at the moment. We lost to many players and that would only have us two games less than last year which had a much deeper team.
“That’s a truer indication of where we are at.”
In other results, Melton beat East Point, 13.7 (85)-5.9 (39), while Melton South lost to Sebastopol.
