So stunning was Melton South’s comeback from a 47-point deficit against Melton, even the Panthers themselves didn’t see it coming.
South kicked 10 unanswered last-quarter goals to win its Ballarat Football League clash 15.11 (101) to 12.11 (83) at a wildly windy MacPherson Park. So much so that not a single point was scored to the northern end after half time.
The comeback was as late as it was large, with the Panthers looking like a spent force down by 47 points at the three-quarter time huddle.
A goal early in the last term put Melton on notice, and the Bloods responded by locking the game down for the next 10 minutes.
It was a this point, with Melton South needing to double its score, that the game sprung to life.
Panthers coach Matt Sutton with two, Anthony Cristofaro and Jaiden Spicer piled on four South goals in under five minutes.
Suddenly the gap was just 16 points with 15 minutes down, an equation stacked in South’s favour.
Melton were powerless to counter-attack, but South got the jitters, missing set shots and allowing the Bloods to wind the clock into time-on.
Josh Ryan then soccered through a South goal to peg the gap to eight, then 26 minutes into the quarter a running goal from Spicer made the difference two.
Any hopes of a siren for Melton to escape with victory were dashed, with the shout “still five minutes to go” coming from the Bloods’ bench in the 28th minute.
And South would make the most of the time, with a third snap from the right pocket, this time Ben Peters, putting the Panthers in front.
There was still time for Spicer to kick his third of the term and Rex Hickman to get celebrations started in the marathon final quarter, more than 36 minutes.
Earlier, Melton had defied the wind to win the second quarter against the scoring end and lead by 17 points at the long break, before kicking four unanswered goals in the third term.
Paul Davis and Chris Webber had been stand-outs for the Bloods in the first three quarters, before Spicer, Peters, Doug Thomas and Marc Dransman were among a number of Panthers who lifted in the last.
“To be honest I didn’t think we’d do it,” Sutton said.
“We were down, we’d had a terrible night. Conditions weren’t great and our skill level didn’t help.
“But to kick 10.5 in the last quarter is phenomenal.
“I did give a fair spray at half time and it probably didn’t work as well as what I thought it might, so at three-quarter time we tried different things. We wanted to play the club-rooms side, through the middle and attack at all times.
“For the first three quarters we were smashed at stoppages. We went out there thinking that it might just happen.
“Dougie Thomas and Benny Peters were fantastic, Rex Hickman presented well, in the end blokes started playing the football that they can play.”
Melton coach Bob Heaney was left in disbelief.
“It’s got to hurt, if we want to be a good side. You’ve got to learn how to win games like these, ones you should be winning.
“There’s a few things that went against team structures, guys doing their own thing. We need to get that out of our game.
“We gave away some silly frees, especially with the ball in our hands only for stuff off the ball (to get the kick reversed).
“We were good enough to be seven goals up at three-quarter time so there’s got to be some positives in there somewhere.”
