NORTH Ballarat City stamped its authority as the team to beat in the Ballarat Football League with a comfortable 20-point win over reigning premiers Sunbury at Clarke Oval on Saturday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In an extremely physical match that at times threatened to boil over towards the latter stages, North City held off a late Lions charge to claim its biggest scalp of the year so far, winning 14.16 (100) to 11.14 (80).
With 25 points separating the two sides at the final break and key ruckman Pat Cariss out of the match, it was hard to foresee Sunbury clawing its way back into the game.
However, two goals in the first five minutes from Sunbury’s Cameron McCabe had the home crowd on its feet and daring to dream.
But as he had done all day, Derick Micallef once again stamped his authority on the game for North, booting two goals to steady the ship and take his tally to six majors for the day.
From that point onwards it was merely a procession.
Josh Bromley-Lynch snapped to seal the match, whipping the North City side into a frenzy once the result was secure.
North Ballarat City coach Rob Waters praised his side for its four-quarter effort, but was quick to put a lid on any excessive celebrations.
He pointed to the efforts from Ryan Luke in defence, Micallef down forward and the experience of Marc Greig, Jason McNamara and Ayden George as key factors in the highly physical win.
“Their (Sunbury’s) coach said at quarter time let’s go out there and manhandle them, that’s what you expect from Sunbury footy club and I thought we wore it,” he said.
“You look at the contested footy, I think we might have even manhandled them a bit.”
For the undermanned Sunbury side, which had nine premierships players out of the line up, captain Jay Cheep led by example all day, supported by the lesser known names including Matthew Baird, Greg Hay and Dwain Sanderson.
Cariss was influential early but did not play the entire second half due to a leg injury and has already been ruled out of next week’s clash against Ballarat.
Lions coach Rick Horwood said his side’s turnovers proved fatal.
“Our turnovers killed us, they were really poor and there’s no excuse for that,” he said.
“We had such a young side in and we will learn a lot from that.”
North City remain undefeated at the top of the BFL ladder, while Sunbury slips to third place, sitting below Redan on percentage.
patrick.nolan@fairfaxmedia.com.au