The Narooma Lions’ reserves put an ordinary performance behind them, as they thumped the Broulee/Moruya Giants by 67 points at Bill Smyth Oval.
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With the Lions' senior side having a bye, a handful of regular first graders stepped down to help bolster the reserves side, and their impact was telling.
The squad suffered a blow before the opening bounce, as coach Luke Gardiner was forced to withdraw with an illness.
His absence did little to curb the Lions, who botted five goals before the visitors hit the scoreboard with a major on the quarter time siren.
Zac Martin was dominant in the midfield, winning the hard ball and feeding it to the outside run of Tyson Mikolik, Joel Lansky, and Rhys Peel. Lawrie Hodgson was having a big impact with his strong marking and hard running.
After leading by 28 points at the first change Narooma showed signs of complacency in the second term, and the Giants hit back through the efforts of Deklyn Pascoe, Cam Dorn, and Jayden Richardson to slightly narrow the deficit.
Narooma flicked the switch in the third quarter, using their wind advantage to pile on the pain. Karn Mikolok was in devastating touch, showing clean hands and laser-like accuracy in the forward 50.
Josh Stokes, Tim Watson, and Jackson Taylor all lifted as the Lions piled on six goals to one for the quarter, blowing the margin out to 60 points at the last break.
The Giants, already short-handed to start the day, lost two players to injury in the second half, with a couple of Narooma troops switching sides to even up the numbers.
Young gun Tyson Mikolik capped a strong performance in the midfield by getting on the end of a couple in the final stanza, taking his tally to four goals – one short of his uncle Karn who finished with five.
Dean Friskin, who stepped in to take the reins as coach for the day, was impressed with the Lions' efforts.
“It was a very good start, but we probably let ourselves down a bit in the second quarter,” he said
“We had a bit of a chat at halftime and came out really strong in the third, and ran the game out fairly well I thought.
“I think it was a good confidence boost for our boys to get back on track – onwards and upwards from here.”
Friskin said having a few senior players in the line up gave the team more direction.
“We were lucky to get a few of the senior boys to help out,” he said. “Zac Martin was best afield, and having Jordan Lang and Jackson Taylor out there really helped as well.
“Zac really used the extra space to his advantage, and also put his head over the ball and was hard at it all day.
“Karn Mikolik enjoyed the release of going from the back line to the forward line and played really well – both of the Mikoliks were very good.
“Jacob Anderson showed a bit going into the midfield, and Tim Watson just gets better with every game he plays.”
Narooma's senior side is at home to Merimbula this Saturday, with the reserves having a bye.
Narooma 17.11 (113) (Goals: K Mikolik 5, T Mikolik 4, A Barrett 2, S Anderson, J Taylor, D Moran, Z Martin, J Anderson; Best: Z Martin, K Mikolik, J Lansky, T Mikolik, L Hodgson, S Anderson) def. Broulee/Moruya 7.4 (46) (Goals: T Turner 3, C Dorn 2, K Reid, D Pascoe; Best: D Pascoe, C Dorn, J Richardson, K Reid, W Williams, J Hirst)