Trengove kicked 10.1 from 12 kicks and took seven marks inside the forward 50 as he single-handedly dismantled the Tigers to the tune of a 19.10 (124) to 9.5 (59) defeat.
The Tigers enter the interleague bye — the GVL faces the Ovens and Murray league at Albury on Saturday — sitting in 11th position on the ladder with one win from six games.
They are one of five teams that have only had one victory this season, the others being Shepparton United, Shepparton, Shepparton Swans and bottom-ranked Benalla.
After the bye, the Tigers face fifth-ranked Mansfield, before confronting three of those teams — Benalla, United and the Swans — in the next month, with third-ranked Euroa also coming up.
That will tell the tale of where the Tigers end the season, but there is hope on the horizon as co-captain Nathan Marrone, Will Hamilton and Doug Wren all aim for post-bye returns.
The Tigers were extremely competitive in the first half of Saturday’s match.
Mooroopna kicked six goals in the opening term, Trengove booting two of those, but the Tigers responded with a five-goal-to-three second term to close the margin to just 17 points at half-time.
However, it was one-way traffic after that.
Trengove exploded in the third term with five goals, all of his team’s majors, as Mooroopna kicked 10 goals to two in the final half.
Trevngove joined the Cats for the final eight games of last season, kicking 19 goals, including his biggest haul of five against Rochester in the elimination final at Victoria Park in Echuca.
Before that he had been playing for Barooga and Cobram in the Murray league, having been delisted in 2019 after playing 186 games with Port and the Bulldogs in 11 seasons.
He was Port Adelaide’s best-and-fairest in 2011, but only kicked 35 goals in his entire AFL career, used mostly in a key defensive post and as a pinch-hitting ruckman.
The 197cm former AFL star has kicked 15 goals in two matches against the Tigers and, on Saturday, more than doubled his season’s goal-kicking tally, which now stands at 17.
He started the 2023 GVL season with bags of three against Shepparton Swans and Shepparton, but was quiet in the next two weeks before sitting out the match against Kyabram.
In tandem with Christopher Neild (two goals), who has been a thorn in the side of Rochester defenders in recent seasons, Trengove accounted for more than half of the score.
Neild kicked eight goals in round 12 last year against the Tigers. The key forwards contributed to a one-sided count of 21-9 marks inside 50 as Rochester spent a lot of time in its back half, particularly in the final quarters.
The pair was given plenty of opportunities to score, Morooopna having 48 forward 50 entries to Rochester’s 28, and, overall, the Cats had an extraordinary 165 more possessions (385 to 220).
In the third quarter, which was completely one-way traffic, the disposal count was 107-36 in Mooroopna’s favour. That was after the Tigers had out-possessed their opponent in the second term.
Mitch Cricelli spent most of the match in the ruck, winning 26 hit-outs and having 17 possessions. He offered support to the hard-working Joe Atley (28 possessions), Nathan McCarty, Blake Evans and Bailey Wileman.
