Carngham-Linton’s Nick Beattie dives for the ball in Saturday’s draw against Skipton.
IT WAS a tale of two halves as nothing could separate Skipton and Carngham-Linton when the final siren sounded at Linton on Saturday.
The Emus looked the stronger team early, threatening to run away with the game with Peter Gunning solid in the ruck, and Stefan Pye getting plenty of the ball in the midfield.
Skipton had skipped out to a three-goal lead by half time, with Trent Pye kicking three goals and Tim McKay dominant up forward, booting two in the first half. McKay was quietened by the Saints defender Andrew Schuyler in the second half, only managing a single goal after the break, which happened to be the Emus’ solitary major in the final two terms.
The former Lexton Plains rivals came out of the half time break all fired up, with both teams giving away free kicks, and at one stage two consecutive 50m penalties to the home side saw the ball transferred from the half-back line to the goal-line for a soft goal.
Emus coach Matt Rae was disappointed with his team’s discipline in the second half. “Discipline was an issue in the second half; we gave away three goals from free kicks when we had the game in our control,” he said.
A determined Saints outfit, led by the hard-working Nathan Pring and Tim Miller in the midfield, managed to edge their way back into the contest, with Miller kicking his two goals in the third term to make sure the game went down to the wire.
As it continued to rain and with only a few minutes left on the clock, Carngham-Linton’s Chris Addison managed to get his toe on a loose ball in the goal square to level the scores at 65 apiece. Both coaches were disappointed that they didn’t walk away with all four points.
Rae said his team now had to move on from the result and look at this weekend’s match against reigning premiers Waubra.
“We need to get together and forget about what happened today,” he said.
“It will be a tough game but we keep improving.”
Carngham-Linton’s coach Darren Quilliam said “we were a little bit stiff we didn’t win, but we were lucky to get away with a draw as well.”
C-Linton 10.5 (65)
Skipton 9.11 (65)