GVL | Seymour grinds undermanned Tatura into the ground

By Zac Standish

Jun 19, 2022

Continuing on: Ben Rigoni was dominant through the midfield as Seymour made it four straight victories with a big win over Tatura. Photo by contributed

Seymour made it four straight Goulburn Valley League victories on Saturday afternoon, destroying an undermanned Tatura 16.14 (110) to 1.3 (9) at Tatura Park.

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Overcoming a sloppy opening term, the Lions clicked into gear shortly after the first change, only conceding one behind on their way to the three-figure triumph.

Led by a dominant performance by Todd Lawrence in the ruck and Ben Rigoni, Nathan Beattie and Josh Alford through the midfield, Seymour made Tatura look second-rate around the contest as it gained a much-needed percentage boost.

Now sitting one win outside of the top six, Seymour coach Ben Davey said his team simply did what it had to do.

“It was a pretty scrappy game and, although we had some nice passages of play, it certainly wasn’t a great game to watch,” Davey said.

“It certainly didn’t feel like we won by over 100 points in the end, because it was so scrappy and there was just a cloud of players going around clogging it up.

“They played a few players behind the ball for the majority of the time, which made it hard.

“At the end of the day though it was a win that gets us closer to the top six, but for us we move on to next week pretty quick.”

Making a dire situation even worse for the Bulldogs was the loss of three of its senior players to injury, with Curtis Ryan (knee), Jayden Armstrong (knee) and Chaz Sergeant (hamstring) all going down in the first half.

With just one on the bench for the entire second half, Tatura did all it could to stop the bleeding, but in the end was overawed by weight of numbers as the Lions piled on 11 unanswered goals to come away with the 101-point victory.

For the second week in a row, Davey would have been buoyed by the even spread of goal-kickers, with 10 Seymour players registering majors.

He said it was pleasing to see the boys keep their foot on the throat until the end.

“It was a bit of midfield dominance that really made the difference, the ball just didn’t go into their attacking 50 in the second half,” he said.

“Todd Lawrence was excellent in the ruck for us and is just starting to get going, while Ben Rigoni really led from the front on the ball.

“Despite the big win there is still plenty for us to work on, but we can take confidence out of the fact we stuck to the task until the final siren.”

Seymour could return to the top six as early next week as it welcomes third-placed Mansfield for a blockbuster Sunday afternoon clash at Kings Park.