Sport
23 May, 2026
Battling the breeze
APART from winning the toss, not much went right for Calivil at Inglewood on Saturday. And even that went wrong. Calivil skipper Sam Green called correctly and then chose to kick to the highway end of the oval, against a breeze that was partly blowing across the oval but was clearly favouring the other end.
APART from winning the toss, not much went right for Calivil at Inglewood on Saturday. And even that went wrong. Calivil skipper Sam Green called correctly and then chose to kick to the highway end of the oval, against a breeze that was partly blowing across the oval but was clearly favouring the other end. By quarter-time the Woodies had piled on 7.4 to 1.0 and the game was effectively over. Inglewood coach Jackson Hood admitted he was surprised by the Calivil call, but it played into his team’s determination to start well after some tardy first quarters. “It’s something we have been working on in the first few weeks, making sure we stamp our authority early,” he said. Demons coach Sam Maher said the feeling out on the ground was that the wind was mainly blowing across the ground, but regardless of the call he acknowledged that turnovers coming out of defence were critical to the result. “We have had some real issues in our first quarters – we just seem to come out flat,” he said, with plans to adjust the team’s pre-match routine to try to remedy the slow starts. Losing key forward Jack Maher before the game didn’t help the cause, with the Demons feeling unable to kick long to a contest, and they also had to scramble in the ruck against a tough opponent in Tom Kennedy. Inglewood’s press worked effectively all day, with the Calvil players forced into repeated disposal errors. Despite the 98-point defeat, Maher saw some positives for his team. “The stats showed we lost the inside-50 count by only 10 or 12, and clearances by five or six – it was just transition that killed us.” Bregon Cotchett’s excellent season continued for Inglewood, with the onballer sneaking forward for four goals, while new key forward Daniel Godden kicked 2.7 and provided the tall target that the Woodies have lacked along with Ben Morgan. Young Mitchell Pickering looks fragile, but he was among the goals again, booting three. Calivil struggled to score when they went forward, with only four goalkickers on the day, and Josh Connolly the only multiple scorer with two. The Demons go into this week’s home clash against Macorna with optimism, while Inglewood travels to Maiden Gully, with Hood focused on beating teams around them on the ladder.
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PYRAMID Hill recruit Jhye Baddeley-Kelly might be on his way to emulating Bridgewater star Lachie Sharp by winning both the Loddon Valley goalkicking and the league best and fairest award. Baddeley-Kelly has kicked 26 goals in the last two weeks, with 14 against Mitiamo following a dozen against Calivil, and he has been in the Bulldogs’ best players every week. He now leads the goalkicking with 37 from six games, one ahead of Sharp, who will miss at least one week with an abductor injury. Pyramid Hill now sit on top of the ladder on percentage after the 113-point demolition of the Superoos. Miti was up against it before the game started, with the team’s best two players, coach Luke Lougoon and star recruit Joey Mizzi both missing with injury. Lougoon has been sidelined for three weeks with a hamstring strain, while Mizzi did not come up in time after his dramatic neck injury against Newbridge that saw the game abandoned in the third quarter. The coach will miss again this week, but Mizzi will play if he gets through training tonight. Baddeley-Kelly’s two seasons with Boort in the North Central league saw him finish in the top three of the league’s best and fairest award twice, but he had a reputation as a “flat-track bully” who didn’t always perform well against the competition’s better sides. He’s already gone a long way towards shedding that tag with top showings against Marong (three goals) and Bridgewater (four goals) in a hybrid mid-forward role. In the last two weeks he has played permanently forward with devastating impact. Coach Jarrod Fitzpatrick said Baddeley-Kelly’s position on the ground would depend on match up from week to week. Midfielders Isaac Brill (53 disposals) and James Sala (46) were again instrumental in getting the ball into the forward 50, where Baddeley-Kelly added eight tackles to his 23 disposals and 14 goals. Mitiamo matched it with the Bulldogs in the first and third quarters, scoring 7.3 to 9.5 in those two terms, but was blown away in the second and final quarters. Pyramid Hill piled on 17.11 to 3.2 in those terms, kicking with the wind. -GARY WALSH