THE mere mention of the name Matt Perri must send shudders through Mount Pleasant.
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For the third game in a row against the Blues, Leitchville-Gunbower’s Perri booted a double figure bag of goals as the Bombers recorded their biggest win since joining the Heathcote District league in 2010 with a 188-point mauling of Mount Pleasant on Saturday.
Perri bagged 12 goals in the Bombers’ crushing 30.23 (203) to 2.3 (15) victory at Gunbower.
Earlier this season Perri slotted 10 goals against the Blues in round three, while in their round 14 encounter last year, he also kicked 10.
Perri’s haul of 12 took his season tally to 67 as he continued his superb 2017.
“He has done a lot of work on his goalkicking this year and would be up in the high 80s as far as his conversion percentage,” Bombers coach Matt Hawken said.
“He’s probably not generating any more shots than previous years, but his set-shot kicking has been outstanding.”
The performance from Perri headlined what Hawken described as a strong brand of team footy by the Bombers across the four quarters.
“We had a really good side in today and that was reflected in the way we were able to play a good brand of team footy,” Hawken said.
“You don’t kick a score like that unless you work really well together and I thought we did that today.”
Perri, Jack Dye (four goals) and consistent midfielder Matt Pollock led the best players for the Bombers, who were in front by 47 points at quarter-time, 90 at half-time and 142 at three quarter-time.
The loss was Mount Pleasant’s seventh in a row, four of which has been by margins of more than 130 points.
The Blues kicked both of their goals in the first half.
Michael Whiting was named best for Mount Pleasant, which has now lost its past four games against the Bombers by a combined 547 points.
• Lockington-Bamawm United’s resurgence continued as it won its third game in a row by defeating Heathcote.
And just like the Cats did in their win against Elmore a fortnight earlier, they produced a turnaround of more than 100 points from their first meeting with the Saints.
Having lost to the Saints by 47 points in round three, this time the Cats won by 73 points – 17.12 (114) to 5.11 (41) at Lockington.
The improving Cats having now won three in a row comes on the back of them only winning three games for the previous two years.
“The boys were prepared to take the game on and run again, which was very pleasing,” Cats coach Peter Gibbs said.
“The boys taking the game on relates back to their defensive pressure. They are willing to take the game on knowing they may turn it over at times, but they are also confident that they can defend to get the ball back.”
For the fifth game in a row class on-baller Meyrick Buchanan was named best for the Cats.
Buchanan also impacted the scoreboard with four goals to be one of 10 goalkickers for the Cats, who also had Darcy McCallum (three), Ricky Walsh (two) and Daniel Zegelin (two) kick multiples.
After being held goalless in the first half by White Hills the previous week, this time the wayward Saints only had one goal on the board at the main break as they trailed the Cats 8.7 to 1.8.
“We had some good chances early with the first three scoring shots, but they were all behinds," said Heathcote coach Luke Bell, who sat the game out with a hamstring injury.
“When Locky had their run with the footy they were able to make the most of it and unfortunately, we were pretty quick to drop our heads and not willing to do the required work to get back into the game.”
On-baller Dylan McCutcheon headed the best players for the Saints.
The Saints will now prepare for what will be an emotional day at home this Saturday against Colbinabbin in what will be the Rikki Stephens Memorial Day in conjunction with DonateLife Victoria.
• In what was a one-sided round 12 where the average margin was 106 points, the closest match was between White Hills and Huntly – 55 points.
The Hawks avenged their upset loss to the Demons from earlier in the season with a 21.15 (141) to 13.8 (86) victory at White Hills.
Huntly ensured there wasn’t going to be a repeat of their round three result by building a 39-point advantage at half-time, 10.8 to 4.5, having earlier conceded the first two goals of the game.
“Our attack on the footy and defensive pressure was really good today… we had a focus that if we were on top of that then the footy would take care of itself,” Huntly co-coach Ryan Semmel said.
The Hawks’ Phil Ryan cut the Demons apart, booting six goals in a best-on-ground performance.
“He was unstoppable today. He’s a quality player who works hard hard and he finished his work off today,” Semmel said.
The hard-running Lachlan Ryan and ruckman Rhett Sutton (three goals) were also influential for the Hawks.
Among the Hawks' 10 goalkickers was Braidy Dickens, who kicked one in his first senior game back from a knee reconstruction.
White Hills coach Brent Millar said the Hawks had too much polish for the Demons.
“When you've got a side like Huntly that has 15 to 18 really polished players, we were able to match it with them in patches, but not four quarters," Millar said.
“I thought our effort today was great, but we just got beaten by a better team."
The consistent Jake Dickens was again a standout for the Demons with his intercept marking across half-back, while Mitchell Curtis did a strong job in his run-with role on the dangerous Semmel.
• Colbinabbin won its second game in a row by triple figures.
The Grasshoppers backed up last week's 132-point belting of Mount Pleasant with a 100-point hiding at home of Elmore – 22.18 (150) to 7.8 (50).
Coach Nick Knight (five), Ricky Welch (four) in his first senior game of the season and Ryan Hon (four) combined to kick 13 goals for the Grasshoppers.
The Grasshoppers were off target in the first half when they had 10.13 on the board, but the straightened up after the main break with 12.5, which included another eight-goal final term for the second week in a row.
Hon was named best for the Grasshoppers, with his endeavor again receiving plenty of praise from Knight.
"Honny's work-rate over the past couple of weeks has been fantastic. He has a tremendous running ability and we're utilising that on-ball at the moment,” Knight said.
Ruckman Hadleigh Sirett and ball magnet Nat Nixon also impressed for the Grasshoppers.
In the Bloods' 12th-straight loss to Colbinabbin, defender Nathan Brewster was their best player.