It wasn’t flashy or glamorous and it certainly wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but Ben Davey and his Seymour troops won’t care one bit.
In wild and woolly conditions at Kings Park on Saturday afternoon, the Lions claimed the four points in their Goulburn Valley League senior football clash against a determined Benalla, atoning for their poor effort against Mooroopna to once again improve to a positive record for the season.
The 14.6 (90) to 7.14 (56) win was hard-fought, with both sides enjoying periods of momentum throughout the contest, however, the class of Seymour prevailed when the game was still in the balance.
Despite looking the better side for much of the first term, with intense pressure forcing turnovers and strong overlap run from the back half giving the forwards good looks in attack, the Lions enjoyed a slender 4.1 (25) to 3.3 (21) lead at the first break, with Benalla making the most of its forays forward.
A similar pattern emerged early in the second quarter, as Seymour booted the first two majors of the term through Nathan Fowler and Will Le Deux, before Benalla hit back with a 50m bomb from Tyler McGregor to reel the margin back to 10 points.
But the Lions made a decisive move in the final 10 minutes before half-time, kick started by co-coach Jack Murphy, who slotted his second of the game amid a run of three straight Seymour goals to take a handy 27-point lead into the rooms.
With the skies blackening and the wind picking up as the two sides returned from the main break, Benalla began the second half the way Seymour had finished it, with the Mark Marriott tap to Chris Welsh clearance combination in the centre circle looking at its potent best.
It was that man Welsh that opened the scoring for the Saints, roosting one from beyond the arc to put his side back to within three straight kicks, which was soon two, as Jordan Wolff slotted a beautiful set shot to have Benalla back to 12 points behind and well and truly on top of the contest.
But as they had all day, the Lions found a way to dent the Saints’ momentum, with Lewis Lubeck and Rory Kennedy slotting consecutive goals, although a late Marriott major left Benalla in with a sniff at 19 points behind heading into the last.
The lights came on to kick off the final term, and with substantial rain imminent, Benalla was desperate to find the first goal, however, poise and control from the Lions saw them land the first through Kennedy to push the margin back to 22 points as the heavens opened.
A pair of late goals the way of Seymour saw the final margin at 34 points, but it wasn’t as straightforward as the scoreboard suggests, with the young Lions often allowing Benalla back into the contest after periods of dominance.
“We’re a young group, we’re working on how we want to play,” Davey said in the rooms following the game.
“As soon as you go away from it, or one person does, then everyone else is on one page and you’ve got one or two on another page, and you fall down really quick.
“I thought there were patches all day where we would be switched on and on the same wavelength for 10 minutes, and then there would be 10 minutes where we were like a dog’s breakfast.
“But there’s three guys in there today that are under-18s, and three that it’s their first year out of under-18s, so it’s a slow build. Coming on from last year where we blooded a heap of young guys, and we are still doing the same thing, and our injury (list) is pretty deep at the moment, so a lot of guys are getting an opportunity.
“It’s going to be a roller-coaster, ups and downs, good and bad, I’ve just got to do my best not to blow my top.”
While it wasn’t the finest example of GVL football ever witnessed, the Lions still receive four points, with the effort a vastly improved one from their round eight clash against Mooroopna the previous weekend, with Davey having implored his players to improve their preparation throughout the week.
“I definitely did (have expectations for the group this week) because I thought that last week’s effort was (poor),” he said.
“It’s not that they’re not trying, they’re working hard, but if you don’t prepare well coming into the game (you don’t get the result). It happens to teams, and you see it all the time coming off a bye, but Mooroopna were all right, they came out okay.
“We’re a young team, maybe just thought it was going (to happen), you know, ‘oh we’ve won four in a row, Mooroopna aren’t going that good, we’ll win’, that can happen…
“The message for the boys this week was really just to make sure you prepare better and you’re switched on for the game, you arrive ready, and you’ve got all your tools ready to go.”
The victory has Seymour back inside the top six and a game clear of Shepparton in seventh, which is a good place to be at the midpoint of the season, however, Davey knows that it’s your ladder position after round 18, not nine, that really matters.
“We put it up there that we want to play finals, that the goal,” he said.
“We’re 5-4, and our first three weeks were pretty tough, but we are under no illusion as to what we’ve got in the next five weeks coming up.
“We play Rochester, Kyabram, Echuca, Swans again and Mansfield, so it’s tough, but everyone has to play each other.”