It was a good old-fashioned shoot-out between Williamstown CYMS and Oakleigh Amateurs in the Victorian Amateur Football Association Premier C at Fearon Reserve on Saturday.
The gunslingers of the respective sides, Nick Ebinger, of CYs, and Aaron Cloke, of the Krushers, combined for an entertaining 13-goal sideshow.
Cloke won the individual battle with seven goals to Ebinger’s six, but Ebinger had the last laugh, with CYs winning 21.12 (138) – 17.15 (117) in a free-flowing, end-to-end game.
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The fans who gathered at the Esplanade could not help but be drawn to the battle of the forwards – two of most promising youngsters in the competition and sitting first and second on the league’s goalkicking tally.
Cloke moved to within three goals of the half century for the season, while Ebinger has 41.
“To see two kids leading the league in goalkicking and having a shoot-out in the game is pretty exciting,” CYs coach Mathew Montebello told Star Weekly.
“That’s one of the things I love about the VAFA; you can bleed these kids into the teams and they have an opportunity to be able to go at it pretty hard and make their mark.
“I think because we don’t go out and recruit with big money, we don’t generally get the older blokes, therefore you can build a team from the bottom up, age wise, and work from there.”
The win sees CYs move up to fourth-last on the ladder and a step further away from the relegation zone, although Montebello is unlikely to rest easier at night following their latest four points.
“We’re trending up but we’re still not clear of the bottom two … seventh could easily become ninth if we drop games at the wrong time. We need to string a few wins together.”
CYs showed some maturity in the win, doing it without skipper Ben Gray.
Luke Molan was enormous in the defensive role usually assigned to Gray, while Ben Coram was equally as important at the back.
The key ingredient for CYs was their leg speed in the middle. They are backing the likes of Tom Johnstone, Russell Ackerly, Joel Hogarth and Jack Gray to run opposition sides off their feet and they did that to Oakleigh. CYs (3-7) will travel to fifth-placed Peninsula (5-5) on Saturday.
