As the umpire held the football aloft to start the final quarter at Mooroopna Recreation Reserve on Saturday night, the match between the Cats and Shepparton Swans was on a knife’s edge.
Mooroopna held a slender seven-point advantage at the last change, the remnants of what was a larger lead that had been cut back by a Shepparton Swans fightback in the third term.
The game was well and truly in the balance, but not for long.
A fourth-quarter onslaught had the Cats kick away to run out 34-point victors in the end.
Thanks to the team at GVL Data, we can see what exactly went right for Mooroopna — and wrong for the Swans — in the deciding term.
One of the keys to Mooroopna’s success was efficiency.
The Cats went inside-50 11 times in the fourth term, scoring on 100 per cent of those entries.
Meanwhile, the Swans were the opposite.
They had eight inside-50s, but failed to capitalise on any of them as they were held scoreless for the quarter.
Needless to say, it is hard to win a game of football that you are trailing in if you do not score.
Looking for targets in the most dangerous part of the field, Mooroopna had six marks inside 50 to the Swans’ zero.
Mooroopna’s pressure forced five backline turnovers from the Swans, while the Cats were clean as a whistle in their own defensive 50 with no turnovers whatsoever.
The Cats were also plus 12 in intercept possessions in the fourth term, plus eight in one-percenters and plus six in hit-outs to advantage.
All this culminated in a dominant, match-winning final quarter for the Cats.
Mooroopna controlled the game up and down the field in the final stanza, powering it to what was, in the end, a comfortable six-goal win.
Key stats:
Disposals
Mooroopna: 317
Shepparton Swans: 258
Contested possessions
Mooroopna: 113
Shepparton Swans: 99
Intercept possessions
Mooroopna: 62
Shepparton Swans: 41
Marks
Mooroopna: 92
Shepparton Swans: 60
Clearances
Mooroopna: 39
Shepparton Swans: 28