BRIGHT’S senior football side will be thanking their lucky stars they had enough on the board to get over the line against a surging Moyhu outfit in the second half.
The Mountain Men progressed to the senior semi-final after their 12.19 (91) to 10.4 (64) win over the Hoppers on Saturday at Tarrawingee.
It was one-way traffic early on as Bright played the game their way and Moyhu struggled to keep pace.
Despite some inaccuracy in front of the sticks, Bright had more than enough looks on goal to take a healthy 50-point margin heading into half-time.
Moyhu came out of the rooms after the break revitalised, and after some undisciplined actions from Bright gifted an easy goal, momentum started to change.
The Hoppers started to get more of the ball, and convert on crucial chances, while the Mountain Men sprayed the ball for six minor scores and no goals, leading by 30 points with one term left to play.
A mad-dash final quarter saw Moyhu slightly close the gap but Bright was too strong, sailing through to the semis by 27 points.
Bright coach Paul Harrison said the hard work done by his side early in the match paid off.
“I thought our first half was brilliant, we missed a couple of opportunities early but after that we really got going,” he said.
“We do a lot of work on our defensive line, our zone set up behind the footy and our communication to set that up was really good - I thought we were on top across all areas of the game in that first half.”
Guy Campbell finished with three goals, with a total seven Mountain Men hitting the scoreboard, but with 19 minor scores, Harrison said his side would have to tighten up in front of goals.
“As much as you get frustrated and the boys’ skills went a bit skew-whiff with the discipline side of things in the third quarter, even though we gave them the momentum and got them back into the game, they never really got within 30 points,” he said.
“We’ve just got to get back to our basics this week and start building, because our good is very good.
“Joe Gray was great in the ruck for us, and we had a decent spread.
“Guy Campbell, Darcy Sholl, Chad Martin – we still had some good players but the pleasing thing was we won and we’ve got a lot of guys who have got room to lift.”
Moyhu coach Darren Bell said his young side worked well to fight their way back into the game after half-time.
“No one’s played a final before, so I was worried about how we’d go early,” he said.
“Credit to Bright, their pressure was enormous in that first quarter and their transition through the middle just cut us to pieces.
“We had to try and rectify that at half-time, we made a few moves and it worked, got the boys fired up a little bit.
“We made a few moves, brought a few boys into the middle.
“I shortened up the forward line, we went with a four man forward line and played with four wings, because Bright was just cutting us up through the middle and we had to clog it up a bit.
“Jett Roberts played a super last half of footy, Bailey Zimmermann has just been getting better every game, Liam Cook too went hard in it under the contest, and the boys got behind those three.”
Bright will play Milawa next weekend in the semi-final.
In the reserves match on Saturday, Bonnie Doon proved just too strong for Milawa, taking the win 9.7 (61) to 8.5 (53).
By - Nathan De Vries
28th August 2023.
https://www.wangarattachronicle.com.au/sport-sport/bright-advance-after-dominating-first-half
Last Modified on 31/08/2023 17:30