Stingrays keep on rolling

By Paul Pickering
DIFFERENT state, same result. The Dandenong Stingrays juggernaut rolled on in Sydney on Sunday.
The Stingrays recorded their fifth consecutive 40-plus-point victory when they crushed an equally undermanned Greater Western Sydney outfit at Blacktown.
Both sides were without a handful of their key players, most playing in the early fixture between Vic Country and NSW/ACT under-18s at the same venue.
The Stingray-loaded Vics stormed home in that game, and the Rays took that baton and ran with it in the first term of their TAC Cup clash.
Twenty-five minutes, 14 scoring shots and seven goals later, the visitors had all but broken the inexperienced GWS unit.
They led by 41 points at quarter time and went on to win by 53, easing back to a canter once the job was done.
Coach Graeme Yeats was encouraged by the blue-collar performance.
“We were really up and about early,” he said.
“We’ve been working on our starts and our tackling skills and defensive pursuits were fantastic.
“We created a lot of scoring opportunities from our hard work and defensive pressure through the middle of the ground.”
With the representative stars missing, experienced on-ballers Mitch Gent, Brad Tagg, Ben Wells and Matt Lee seemed to relish the extra responsibility.
But the most authoritative performance of the day came from mid-sized forward Arryn Siposs, whose rapid rise to TAC Cup stardom seems almost complete.
Siposs, who was playing under-16 footy for Beaconsfield last year, is fast becoming a key to the Stingrays’ forward structure.
“He was clearly our best player,” Yeats said.
“His work-rate was a benchmark for the team and his impact on the game was enormous.
“He kicked 3.6 and one out-on-the-full, so he could have easily had 10.”
Corey Buchan is another great story. The lightly-built third-gamer kicked six goals, following bags of seven in his first two matches.
Yeats reckons it was Buchan’s best game yet and, scarily, says the Tyabb teen will get even better as he learns the nuances of his role up forward.
Meanwhile, pint-sized defender Lachie Wallace continued his impressive debut season on Sunday, and Vic Country hopeful Piva Wright picked a good time to shine across half-back.
The Stingrays will now be eyeing top spot on the other side of the Queen’s Birthday weekend bye.
A win at North Ballarat on 19 June would do the job, because the ladder-leading Northern Knights played their round 10 fixture as part of the Metro round back in March.
The real test will come when Dandenong faces off against fellow powerhouse Geelong at Shepley Oval the following weekend.