No race for sixth place as Euroa dismantles Benalla to secure Goulburn Valley League finals berth

It was a tremendous day all round for Euroa on its trip up the Hume Hwy Saturday, coming away with all five wins on the netball courts and achieving a three-part sweep on the field.

None were quite as emphatic as the Magpie seniors’ destruction of the Saints, though, and the warning signs were there from the off.

Three majors in the game’s opening 10 minutes certainly made it look like something big was in the offing — but few might have seen exactly this variety of beating coming at that stage.

Coming out of the quarter-time huddle with an unblemished 22-point advantage, the Magpies went on sustaining the attack, offering Benalla no release as the contest decayed.

Once both sides were in the sheds, a shellshocked Saints outfit had but five behinds to its name, having conceded 20 scoring shots in trailing by 65 with matters academic from there.

As the scoreboard ticked over, it became a race for Euroa to get to triple figures before Benalla could enter double digits, but the Saints obtained at least a moment of reprieve when Will O’Donoghue slotted through their first of the day 15 minutes into the third.

In truth, a 131-point margin would be more than satisfactory to the black and white, but it could have been plenty more as the scoreboard read 21.21 (147) to 1.8 (14) once the day-long peppering subsided.

Jett Trotter had by far his most damaging outing of season 2024 after notching seven goals, while Jack McKernan continued to truck along with aplomb after securing four of his own.

Coach Ryan Pendlebury was pleased not to have to look over the shoulder at details from elsewhere after Euroa took care of its own business first.

“The goal of most teams at the start of the year is to make finals, so ticking that off was good,” Pendlebury said.

“Benalla had been playing better recently, but we came to play and got the job done pretty easily in the end.

“We spoke about the fact that if we won today, we were pretty much in; it was a relief not having to jump on the internet and check the scores.

“We got the job done and it all takes care of itself.”

The finals entry was not automatically secured by virtue of Euroa’s four points, but was confirmed with news of the Shepparton Swans’ heavy defeat to Shepparton, where only a red and white victory could have kept the race on.

As far as the Magpies’ own matters, though, Pendlebury paid tribute to the ease with which his forward stocks controlled proceedings.

“Jett has played more on ball this year, but they sent a younger kid to him, so we sent him forward,” Pendlebury said.

“It was really good from everyone down there. You always want more, but we’re pretty happy with the 40-plus scoring shots.

“It’s usually just one quarter you might switch off when you’re having a lot of looks at goal, but having seven or eight good shots each quarter was probably the first time this year.”

The Euroa boss asserted that despite the stakes disappearing from next week’s final with Mansfield, there would be no unforced changes to the side.

“We’ll just take a full-strength team in. You don’t want to float around and rest and go into finals happy to be there,” Pendlebury said.

“Seymour sort of dropped off form at the wrong time last year, so we’ll try and take some good form into finals.”

Benalla named Colby Mathieson, Christopher Welsh and James Martiniello as its top three contributors on a dark day, with the Saints heading west for a meeting of bottom sides with Tatura to finish the year off this week.