Some days you’re happy to scrape away from a tough outing with the four points and your pride intact.
Other days you’re judged a perfect 10.
Lancaster and Nagambie, last year’s grand final sides, would have received double digits from all the judges after eviscerating their opposition in Kyabram District League round eight action.
The Wombats set out to make an example of Violet Town, which came in with only one win for the year, but didn’t have it all their own way in a tit-for-tat opening stanza.
What followed over the remaining three quarters of play can only be described as brutal, destructive and surprisingly collaborative.
The latter label applies because while Zac Cerrone did take Violet Town to task in a perfect 10-goal showing, Lancaster still had 12 individual goal-kickers on the board in what became the second-biggest winning margin seen in the 2024 seniors.
In overseeing the Wombats’ mammoth 33.30 (228) to 5.0 (30) victory that had his side move to 7-1-0, coach Tom Davies lauded the variety of contributors getting involved beyond the obvious spearheads of Cerrone and Jackson McLay (four goals).
“It’s hard in terms of what we expect from teams that aren’t in that top six; we estimated where Longwood was at two weeks ago, but they really took it up to us,” Davies said.
“We knew we had to come out and put a fair few goals on the board.
“We worked on that midfield-forward connection pretty hard over the bye after the Longwood game, and it worked really well with the scoreboard pressure we put on.
“We got pretty good looks at the goals and converted okay, although there were a fair few behinds. Paul Newman gave off about eight goals including one where was about 20 out and handballed it off, so it was pretty unselfish from him.
“I think we only had five blokes who didn’t have a shot on goal; it was a pleasing aspect that we could share it around inside 50.”
Certainly, this was quite some way to bounce back from a near-miss with the ignominy of an unexpected defeat to Longwood.
A similar opportunity to strengthen presents itself this week in the form of another one-win side, this time Girgarre — provided there are no issues around complacency.
“We’re down a bit on percentage (against Murchison-Toolamba), but we’re not taking any sides outside the top six lightly; that was probably what we did against Longwood,” Davies said.
“We’ll prepare as well as we can for Girgarre, and the scoreboard will hopefully take it from there.”
As mentioned there was another monster margin this weekend.
Nagambie threatened to kick itself out of a huge win when it hosted bottom side Undera, but much like Lancaster, quickly and powerfully corrected course after the first break.
Blake Fothergill and Mark Wilson led another dozen goal-kickers for the Lakers with four apiece as nine found multiples in a 27.27 (189) to 1.1 (7) thrashing.
Boasting the aforementioned comfortable percentage cushion, Murchison-Toolamba was able to maintain its grip on top spot in a comfortable 17.11 (113) to 5.6 (36) beating of Avenel.
Shepparton East was able to take the necessary step in staying a half-game back from the top two, accounting for Stanhope 12.9 (81) to 6.9 (45).
Merrigum and Longwood each notched their third set of points for the year in attempts to keep some kind of touch with the finals places, the former knocking over Dookie by 27 points, while the latter prevailed in a tight seven-point victory over Girgarre.
Sunday’s standalone fixture saw Rushworth entertain Tallygaroopna, and ‘entertain’ was a more than appropriate word as the Redlegs snatched it late to take fifth spot on percentage in a thriller, 9.8 (62) to 7.10 (52).