For the second time this season, Mooroopna’s Jackson Trengove has done the unthinkable.
On Saturday, the bulldozing forward replicated his 10-goal haul against Rochester in round six, this time putting Shepparton United to the sword in a 22.11 (143) to 8.7 (55) victory.
Hitting double digits in bush footy is expected from time to time, but in Goulburn Valley League competition it’s as rare as hen’s teeth, which says a thing or two about Trengove’s pedigree.
The Cats kicked 6.3 in the first quarter, kicked off by a smart effort from Jed Woods which was followed by a Chris Nield snap and, finally, Trengove’s first.
United forward Jayden Magro hit back with a goal from a tricky angle but the Cats built a healthy advantage through efforts from Will Bella, Trengove and Keelin Betson.
And if the opening quarter effort was efficient from Mooroopna, the second was downright deadly.
A 7.2 term followed as United fell behind by 54 points and despite the scoring slowing down a fraction in the third quarter Mooroopna kept its professionalism rolling right through to the end for an 88-point win on home soil.
Trengove’s double-digit bag secured him best-on-ground merits and though Mooroopna coach John Lamont cheekily said a couple of his goals were a bit ‘Joe the goose’, the Cats leader was ultimately chuffed with how even the spread of contributors was.
“When you have win like that, yes Trengove kicks 10 but you rely on a good even contribution — you want that and I felt we got it,” he said.
“Our tackle numbers were still good, relative to the amount of ball we had we still applied good pressure.
“One of the risks, when you’re on top, is that you over-possess and you get a bit of junk with your possessions.
“I felt we were pretty efficient and direct with the ball.”
Lamont went on to shed light about how its brutal one-point loss to Euroa in round 10 sparked a new blueprint for the rest of the season.
The Cats’ coaching group locked in the previous block of four matches against the three Shepparton sides and Tatura as games the side should win, which went to plan.
It means finals are locked in, with the four wins more compelling than first thought considering the next run of fixtures are against Seymour, Kyabram, Mansfield and Echuca.
“We framed it up as we’ve got four games you should win and then you’ve got four toss-of-the-coin games,” Lamont said.
“They’re all tough ... we feel we’ve built to that the last month and that’s why we had a particular focus of winning those games.
“I wanted to avoid going through the motions of those games waiting for this last block of four.”