Ocean Grove defeated Portarlington by 74 points to bring up win number four for the season, but an estimated crowd of between 2500 and 3000 was mostly there to see one player – Nathan Jones.
The former Melbourne captain wore the red and blue in 302 AFL games and played a one-off game for Portarlington as part of the Carlton Draft promotion where ex-AFL stars play for struggling local clubs to help them out.
Jones booted the opening goal of the game to raucous cheers from both home and away supporters in what Ocean Grove coach Pete Davey described as “a strange atmosphere”.
“We have a great supporter base who follow us everywhere, but when they kicked that first goal and basically everyone at the ground roared in celebration, we knew we were going to be the bad guys if we ruined the party,” he said.
“They’re strange games. It’s a finals’ crowd with a carnival atmosphere. They’re easy days to lose focus but I thought we handled it very well.”
While Jones was the focus of many in the crowd, it was two Ocean Grove forwards who starred.
Young ruckman Kye Annand continued to shine in his first full season with seven goals while James Paterson kicked six in an electrifying display.
“Our efficiency and accuracy up forward was really good after quarter time,” Davey said.
“Kye and James caught the ball really well and when they didn’t, we had great small options at ground level.
“Craig Goodger in his senior debut was fantastic and ended up with three goals as well.”
Davey said the carnival atmosphere was something the playing group just had to deal with.
“I’ve been involved in one of these games before and they do turn into circuses,” he said.
“I just said to the guys that we needed to respect why the day was happening and that we needed to do everything off field to support Port, but that our focus on field was playing tough, disciplined footy.”
Davey said the opportunity for his young midfield to learn from a star such as Jones was invaluable.
“We have a very inexperienced midfield and I wanted them to get as much work experience as they could, mostly around seeing how an elite mid manoeuvres in tight but it ended up being a very open, bruise-free game after about 15 minutes.
“You can take it two ways – there was some motivation for us in that they highlighted our fixture as a game that they thought they could win but the flip side is that it gave our boys a chance to learn a few things. We went into it with a little bit of both.”
Davey said the most pleasing aspect of the win was his side’s tackling.
“Our tackling was the best it’s been for some time and our change of tempo in play was also pretty good,” he said.
“We’d taken 100 marks to three-quarter time which is a good indication that we were controlling the footy.
“Our conversion up forward was also the best it’s been this year, highlighted by Kye kicking seven straight.”
With four games to go and not in finals contention, Davey said the message remained the same as it always has.
“The message hasn’t changed since we shifted our focus to next year,” he said.
“We just want to improve in different areas and learn as much as we can. We debuted another two players yesterday, Craig Goodger and Nick Gibbon, and both acquitted themselves very well.
“There will be more opportunities for young players to play these last four games if they train hard and show the right attitude.”
SCOREBOARD
Portarlington 1.0(6), 3.1(19), 6.4(40), 9.6(60)
Ocean Grove 3.5(23), 9.5(59), 16.7(103), 20.14(134)
GOALS
Portarlington: M. Spence 2, N. Jones 2, W. Foott, T. Benham, B. Wells, N. Cini, T. Cummins.
Ocean Grove: K. Annand 7, J. Paterson 6, C. Goodger 3, M. Taylor, M. Sutton, N. Gibbon, F. Long.
BEST
Portarlington: W. Foott, T. Cummins, M. Farrell, J. Cummins, S. Walton, S. Hogan.
Ocean Grove: K.Annand, F. Keck, J. Paterson, J. McHenry, M. Taylor, C. Goodger.
