By Justin Schwarze
Even with a new look the Pakenham Football Club had the same winning ways as the Lions moved to 6-0 in a pride round victory over Yarra Glen in Outer East Division 1.
The classic Pakenham maroon jumper was swapped out for a white guernsey with a rainbow crest as the teams contested for the Pride Cup.
In strange conditions, the small ground at Yarra Glen with windy weather made the Lions adjust and reassess when they weren’t kicking with the breeze.
In the first term, the River Pigs had the gust to their advantage, recording the first five scores, with two being goals.
The visitors responded strongly, dominating the final stage of the term and drawing level at quarter time as both teams put up 2.4(16).
Pakenham’s brilliant play flowed into the second, where five different players booted a major.
The Lions blew away the hosts in the quarter, holding Yarra Glen goalless and leading at halftime 2.6(18) to 7.8(50).
“I said to the boys, now that we’ve got the breeze, let’s just make sure we don’t blaze away and I asked them to be patient and look for the best option inside 50,” senior coach Justin Stanton said of his quarter time message.
“They did that and we kicked five goals and set the game up really well at half-time.”
Attempts from the River Pigs to get back into the game were withstood by Pakenham, as Yarra Glen managed just 2.1 to 1.4 in the third with the wind.
Zak De Bono, Sam Cachia, Tanner Stanton and Bailey Stiles all got their second individual goals in the final term to help the Lions to a 6.8(44) to 12.14(86) win.
“It was a good, tight contest,” Stanton said of the match.
“Yarra Glen were good around the footy, really physical and laid a lot of tackles that put pressure on us.
“It was a good test for us, I was really happy with the way the boys stood up in that pressure.
“We focused all week on how our backline was going to hold up against a team that was going to have a lot more entries inside 50 than the previous two games.
“The challenge was going to be how we adapted to that.
“I thought all of our backline had their moments this week in a positive way, that was a big takeaway.
“The win was great, but how our backline stood up with a lot more forward 50 entries was fantastic.”
Just like most weeks, Pakenham had a plethora of goalkickers with seven finding the big sticks.
It had five players kick two, marking a deep and well-rounded attack going forward.
“We talk about a forward line that needs to kick an amount of goals and we set ourselves a target each week of how many goals we want to kick,” Stanton said.
“But there’s no emphasis on who’s kicking them, we just want the forward group collectively to kick a certain amount of goals and I think we executed that really well not only this week, but I think we’ve done that really well all season so far.
“If you were studying us, it would be tough to identify who you would need to focus your attention on as an opposition backline because we share the load regularly.”
D’Angelo Taito was awarded the Best On Ground Medal for his performance with 22 disposals, four tackles and 41 hitouts.
The result will give the Lions an important confidence boost as the toughest part of the schedule is now upon them.
Pakenham will play the other two best sides in the competition in back-to-back weeks, with a trip to 5-1 Warburton Millgrove first up on the cards for round eight.
“We break the season into four game blocks, we were really happy with our first block, and this is our next block so we want to bank more wins than losses and play some good footy,” Stanton reflected.
“I’m interested to see how we go when we’re challenged.
“There’s been times where we’ve been challenged at stages and we’ve been able to step up.
“With Warburton Millgrove and Seville in the next two weeks, I’m just keen to see how the players respond to that.”
