SANDHURST rocketed back into the BFNL’s top five following a comprehensive 63-point belting of South Bendigo on Saturday.
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In front of a group of Bloods’ life members, who had attended their annual QEO lunch, the Dragons pole-axed South with an eight-goal-to-one first quarter.
It was ‘game over’ by the first change with the Hurst 41 points in front as midfielders Zeb Broadbent (38 possessions for the match) and playing coach Andrew Collins (39) continually pumped the ball into the forward line.
Spearhead Daniel Connors was unstoppable and had landed three of his four match-day goals by the seven-minute mark of the opening term as the Dragons went on to win 16.18 (114) to 7.9 (51).
A seven-goal quarter-time lead just about signals it’s all over for the trailing club.
Apart from Connors’ heroics Collins, Broadbent, Lee Coghlan and Nick Stagg all nailed first term goals.
South’s first and only goal for the opening half came from the boot of Kaiden Antonowicz at the 28-minute mark of the opening quarter.
For the rest of the game Josh Hann shut him down as Antonowicz finished with just 2.4 for the afternoon.
The middle two quarters – particularly the third - saw a mini-South revival, but they were still 50 points down at the last change.
Matt Thornton and Jake Wilkinson were on target for the Dragons at the Barnard Street end before Hurst midfielder Lee Coghlan was downed on the scoreboard half-forward flank late in the second term.
South Bendigo coach Brady Childs, in his first senior game of the season after recovering from a knee reconstruction, was yellow carded and sent off as Coghlan was stretchered from the field.
The incident must have fired up the Bloods. They added 5.1 to 2.7 in the third term with Collins landing both Hurst majors.
He drove home a 50m set shot from straight in front and then snapped a left-foot around-the-body snap before South snapped into gear.
Following an early major to Brock Harvey, Sam Maher landed South’s third just after Childs had completed his 15 minutes off the field and ran back on.
The Dragons responded in emphatic fashion after the three-quarter time break. Codie Price, Broadbent and Collins again fired up the Hurst as first Taylor Strachan and promoted under-18 player Sean O’Farrell (2) landed majors for the Dragons.
O’Farrell drilled a pair within 60 seconds of each other. The first came from a long floating kick and the second after O’Farrell had collected a pinpoint Collins’ handball in the Dragons’ forward zone and capped it off with the Hurst’s 16th goal for the day.
Collins said the way the side had started “with a bit of sting about us” was really pleasing.
“Daniel Connors got us off to a flying start. We got the ball into him well, but he was good enough to win the one-on-one contests and got us going.
“And when you consider Josh Hann’s job on Antonowicz – I’d say Josh is probably under-rated in the league.
“He’s a super one-on-one defender, strong and really quick and he played exceptionally well,” Collins said.
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