With a dead-eye performance in front of goal at the weekend, Mansfield showed it certainly can play, overcoming a sluggish start on the road against Seymour to sew up its 11th win of the season and officially punch its finals ticket with four rounds remaining.
Barely putting a foot wrong, at least when confronting the big sticks, the Eagles showcased some remarkable accuracy in the 20.4 (124) to 11.19 (85) win, defeating the Lions at Kings Park for the round 14 Goulburn Valley League football clash in a result that has huge implications for both sides’ September prospects.
Despite booting the opening goal of the contest through Will Foster, Mansfield found itself on the back foot early as Seymour, buoyed by a strong victory over Shepparton Swans in round 13 to keep its finals hopes alive, slotted five of the next six goals to take a 34-13 advantage into the first break.
Billy Hogan kicked off his afternoon with the opening goal of the second term as Mansfield looked to mount a challenge, but the Lions continued to pepper the goal face, kicking four behinds without capitalising on the momentum before Riley Northcott cut the margin back to 13 points with another Mansfield major.
From there it was a repeat of the first term, only this time with the roles reversed, as Seymour was forced to watch five of the next six goals sail through the middle of the Eagles’ goals, as the visitors finished the first half with a flurry to take a nine-point lead into the main break courtesy of a seven-goal-to-one term.
With both sides having enjoyed their period of momentum in the first half, the second half came down to taking chances when they presented themselves and while Seymour created plenty of opportunity, it was unable to grasp it quite like Mansfield.
The Lions managed seven scoring shots in the third quarter to five from the Eagles, yet an inaccurate return of 2.5 compared to Mansfield’s 4.1 saw it slip further behind at the final change of ends, trailing 63-80 as the visitor looked to close out an important win on the road.
And that it did with another blistering seven-goal quarter to storm home to a 39-point victory, thanks in part to an impressive 83 per cent conversion rate in front of goal, notching a seventh win on the trot.
More importantly, while finals looked like an almost certain prospect for the Eagles, the win now makes it official, ending the round in fourth spot with 11 wins, five clear of the seventh-placed Lions with four rounds remaining.
Sam Thomson led the way for Mansfield in the victory with four goals in a best-on-ground performance, closely followed by former AFL Magpie Callum Brown, while James Herridge, Benjamin Reardon and Dirk Koenen were also key contributors.
Hogan continued his inspired form in front of goal, too, adding another bag of five to take his tally to 31 in the past four weeks, propelling him to second on the league goal-kicking table with 44 for the season, one behind Benalla’s Nathan Wright.
The Eagles remain a sniff of a top two finish, sitting a game behind Echuca and Rochester in second and third, respectively, but face a tough run of upcoming games against the Tigers, Kyabram and Shepparton in the next three rounds.
Conversely, the loss has made finals an improbable dream for Seymour, with the Lions now three games and huge chunk of percentage outside the top six, meaning they would at the very least need to win all of their remaining games against Euroa, Shepparton United, Tatura and Shepparton, while also hoping either of the Bears or Swans in fifth and sixth, respectively, lose all theirs.
8°C