Sport
Rowan spoilt for choice with Davies, Uthayakumar and Giobbi headlining round 18 inclusions
Euroa is set to welcome a host of stars for the final round of the Goulburn Valley League season with Scott Rowan revealing six ins for the home clash against Mansfield.
The Magpies mentor is spoiled for choice ahead of the round 18 clash with gun forwards Tristan Davies, Erish Uthayakumar and youngster Cohen Paul joining class defender Adam Giobbi and utility Jack McKernan back in the squad.
The inclusions bolster Euroa’s outfit, one that suffered a 54-point loss to Kyabram last weekend.
Saturday’s top six clash at Memorial Oval will have repercussions on the first week of finals matches, with the loser set to finish sixth.
“We’ve got six in this week with Jack, Tristan, Adam, Erish, Harrison (Jarvie) and Cohen returning,” Rowan said.
“Four of them are in the forward line and last week we struggled down there, we didn’t have an option down the line, but now we’ve got some representation which is good.
“I felt we brought the pressure for three quarters (against Kyabram) and I felt like we made a lot of mistakes with our ball movement. We’ve addressed that during the week and watched some vision and hopefully we can correct it on Saturday.”
Competition rank
Contested possessions
Euroa: Second
Mansfield: Fourth
Hard ball gets
Euroa: Third
Mansfield: Fifth
Overall pressure
Euroa: Eighth
Mansfield: Sixth
Tackles
Euroa: Seventh
Mansfield: Eighth
In the Mansfield camp, Eagles coach Chad Owens revealed his outfit would inject some much-needed pace this weekend.
Ben Les (Murray Bushrangers) and Nathan Buchanan (injury) return this weekend for the trip to Memorial Oval.
Owens stressed the importance of his side nailing its contested ball work against one of the competition’s best in-and-under teams.
“Obviously, if we don’t put in a physical performance we’re going to get knocked over pretty quick,” Owens said.
“They are a physical team and they don’t give you much time with the ball, they just tackle and tackle and we need to make sure in close we’re on. Hopefully we can bring the pressure we brought for three quarters against Mooroopna.
“We’re going to have speed, but if we don’t have our inside game balance right with our outside run we’re going to be up against it. Will Hayes is a super talent, Smithy (Andrew Smith) in the ruck just competes all day.’’
Euroa is second in the competition for contested possessions and third for hard ball gets.
The Magpies’ on-ballers, superstar Will Hayes, Max Gleeson and Andrew Bell, lead the way for contested work and it’s one area of the game Rowan hoped to see his side get back to its best in.
“With the amount of ins and outs we’ve had this year, one thing I’ve always said is always bring pressure and have effort and be a hard-contested team,” Rowan said.
“If we lose we drop down to sixth, we don’t feel we should be in that position and we’ll put all of our focus in making sure we get the job done this weekend.”