By Tara Murray
There would be no repeat of the previous week as Melton Centrals broke through to get its second win of the Riddell District Football League season.
After losing after the siren to the Gisborne Giants, Centrals found themselves in a battle on Saturday heading into the final quarter against Lancefield.
Scores were locked at 73-apiece with both sides desperate to get a rare win.
The message from coach Damien Zanic and the leaders were clear heading into the final quarter.
“The main thing we spoke about at three quarter time was learn from last week,” he said.
“There was a reserves premiership reunion as well. We didn’t want to fall away, we wanted to finish off strongly which was terrific.”
Centrals kicked six goals to two in the final quarter to come away with a 17.8 (110)-13.8 (86) win.
Zanic said the group never dropped their heads after the result against Gisborne and took a lot of lessons out of that game.
“We hadn’t been in that position [to win] and we have come up against some good sides,” he said.
“This time we were able to make it count.”
Hisham Kerbatieh kicked nine goals to take his tally to 17 in the past two weeks.
Zanic said he had been sensational.
“He is one of those players that you can put one-on-one in the goal square and there’s not many in the competition who are quick enough to go with him,” he said.
“He could have had 10 last week and 10 this week. He’s a smart footballer and we have to get it down to him as quickly as possible.”
Zanic said the move of Kerbatieh into the forward line came after they lost Brad Layton through injury.
The move is likely to remain permanent for the rest of the season.
Taygen Dennison and Karl Ullrich were among the other standouts for Centrals.
With its second win on the board, Centrals have another winnable match this week against Woodend-Hesket, which also has two wins for the season.
Zanic said they were focused on other things than wins for the last part of the season.
“It’s about having fun,” he said. “We want to enjoy our footy after a tough year,” he said.
“The fixture didn’t help us early when we played a lot of the finalists in the first part of the year..
“We have Woodend at home having learned a lot from the first time. We’ll look to get together and enjoy our footy as much as we can.
“We’ll do some team bonding in the next few weeks.”
In other matches, Diggers Rest proved too strong for Melton South, 11.13 (79)-7.7 (49).
The Burras did the damage in the second quarter when they kicked six goals to none.
Brad Sluggett, Hayden Davis and Nathan Aidonis were named the Burras best, while Jake Thornton-Gielen, Lachlan Pritchard and Riley Theo were the Panthers best.
