Sport
8 May, 2026
Veterans, debutante with zip
INGLEWOOD’S radical reworking of its forward line, with the team’s smallest players and a skinny first-gamer leading the attack, saw off Macorna on Saturday.
Mischa Fraillon, who wouldn’t look out of place wearing jockey silks, was stationed in the goal square after quarter time, giving up as much as 30cm in height to his opponents and running rings around them.
He kicked six goals as the Woodies stormed to their first win of the season, inflicting the Tigers’ first loss in the process.
The victory, however, came at a cost, with important key defender and former best and fairest winner Cody Stobaus taken by ambulance to hospital after an apparent fractured right ankle in the second quarter.
Captain Daniel Polack and veteran Tynan Hywood zipped around the place as constant threats for Inglewood, and whip-thin Mitchell Pickering marked strongly and kicked two goals in an impressive debut.
Pickering last year took out the league’s under 18 goalkicking award.
Coach Jackson Hood was in the attack in the first quarter, having moved forward last week to provide some leadership to an inexperienced group, but went back to his intercepting role after that.
Fraillon belied his diminutive stature and outmarked big-bodied defenders as well as being too agile on the ground, with the Woodies pouring on 11 goals to four after the first break.
Macorna, missing suspended coach Fergus Payne but playing two former Inglewood stars in Seb Erharter and Josh Whittle, held a narrow quarter-time lead after kicking with the wind, although the blustery breeze was mostly across the ground and died after the main break.
Inglewood’s Tom Kennedy and Macorna’s Matt Colak had a titanic battle in the ruck, with Colak probably winning the battle on the day.
However, the Woodies midfield, led by the prolific Bregon Cotchett, took control and won most of the clearances as the game wore on.
Dimitri Fasoulis kicked three for the Tigers, but their attack misfired on the day.