Altona is setting a roaring pace at the top of the Bowls Victoria premier division ladder.
The A’s are unbeaten in five, a game clear on top and have an incredible shot difference of plus-153.
A’s star Dane McKinnon told Star Weekly his side could not have asked for a better start.
“I was a little bit shocked by that score difference, actually,” he said. “You look at that, it’s a 30-shot average win a game and it does look pretty good.”
Altona has entered the past few summers as a finals contender only to fall behind early and struggle to recover the losses.
There’s no such problem this time around, with the A’s hitting the ground running from the first end of the season.
It all stems from the hard yards they did before the season started.
“We had a really good preparation coming into the season,” McKinnon said.
“The first four or five weeks of practice games were really solid. We played a 12-a-side tournament in Bundoora and lost only one out of five games – and had a few of our better players missing as well.
“Then we had another three practice games on top of that in the following weeks, and we won all of them, too.
“We won seven from eight in our practice games … it was a good lead-in to the season.”
The A’s took care of defending champion Clayton 82-71 at Civic Parade on Friday night.
They took three rinks out of four, with player-coach Brett Foley (20-15), Shane Fordham (26-18) and Brad Peck (20-13) all victorious.
It was the A’s’ fifth win in a row, perhaps enough to hand them early premiership favouritism, but they’re not getting carried away.
“It’s been a good start … but it’s a long season,” McKinnon said.
“Our preparation going into every game has been good. If we can just keep our standards up and keep doing what we’ve been doing, the results will keep coming our way.”
The A’s will face second-placed Melbourne in a blockbuster on the road on Saturday.
“It’s a huge game for us,” McKinnon said. “If we can get a win there, it will give us a bit of a buffer on top.”
