Sport
31 July, 2026
Centurion dances a goal jig
TWO QUARTERS before he kicked his 12th goal for the game and his 100th for the season, Bridgewater coach Lachie Sharp had already got inside Maiden Gully’s heads.
TWO QUARTERS before he kicked his 12th goal for the game and his 100th for the season, Bridgewater coach Lachie Sharp had already got inside Maiden Gully’s heads.
An Eagles supporter on the half-forward flank was taunting Sharp with the not entirely original cry of “Baldy” whenever the star forward got near the ball.
After he kicked his fourth goal of the game near half-time, Sharp celebrated by pointing to his heckler and slapping his head like something out of the old Benny Hill Show.
After his fifth a couple of minutes later, “Baldy” danced a jig in front of his tormentor, shouting “Haha!” repeatedly.
And when the siren rang to end the second quarter, with the Mean Machine already nine goals ahead, the heckler looked sorely deflated.
Imagine the scene when, deep in time-on in the last quarter, Sharp kicked a set shot goal to cue a crowd invasion led by reserves players with party poppers to celebrate his ton for the third season in a row.
Fair to say, the taunts from the crowd had run out of steam as Bridgewater marked a 169-point win. “Interactions like that are why people go to the footy,” Sharp said, “it’s all a bit of fun.”
The result was not much fun for Maiden Gully, which looked like a deflated club days after the Bendigo league rejected its transfer request for next season.
Some early chances to goal were squandered by the Eagles – although there was a moment of delight in the first quarter when Under 18 player Cooper Attard goaled on debut – and Bridgewater was ruthless.
Nineteen goals to one in the second half decimated Maiden Gully’s percentage and probably put paid to its finals’ chances.
Oscar McKinley, who was flown in and out of Melbourne from the Gold Coast on Saturday to play after Harry Conway’s two-week suspension, kicked five goals.
McKinley, sporting a shiner after a collision a week earlier, intended to have the week off, but in the end continued his remarkable consistency in front of goal.
He has 37 goals from just nine games and has not kicked fewer than three in a single match this season.
With Sharp and fellow Gold Coast fly-in Mitch Patten, who was absent against the Eagles, the Mean Machine has an attacking punch like no other side.
Add to them former star Andrew Collins, who played his first senior match fore the year and booted three goals.
Maiden Gully’s powerful ruckman Dan Russell played in defence to try to quell Bridgewater’s potency up forward, leaving the centre bounces to hulking Mathew Crooks, whose lack of mobility proved to be an issue.
The Eagles need to win against Inglewood this week to have any chance of playing finals.
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