The Bears took on local rivals the Shepparton Swans and plugged in from the word go, unleashing a thoroughly dominant outing en route to a thumping 90-point final margin.
Trent Herbert capped the day in style after the siren with his seventh major — though it was perhaps not the most dramatic walk-off kick of the day — to complete a rout that had so many of the classic traits identified with Shepparton football.
Shepparton’s sizzling showing strands Swans
Players with 100+ ranking points: 11-2
Marks inside 50: 18-7
Tackles inside forward 50: 15-4
Scores from turnovers in opposition defence: 7.2 (44) - 1.2 (8)
Kicks: 255-202
Even in the oft-lopsided world of country football, you don’t always see half of one team notch the century for ranking points — but Shepparton would be among the more likely of anyone.
Sure, its usual on-ball brigade of Holland, De Cicco and Smith take the lion’s share of the plaudits in most circumstances.
With the latter still missing, however, there has been no shortage of key contributors to keep the Bear train rolling seamlessly into September.
With that said, there was one notable exception to Shepparton’s usual patterns of control — and his name was Mark Kovacevic.
The Swans’ big man completed the rare task of outpointing Ash Holland in the ruck, helping his side claim the chocolates in hit-outs to advantage (13-12), meaning the Bears midfield was sometimes actually having to work from behind the eight-ball.
Of course, they tend to thrive whether first in possession or second out of the stoppage, and despite the mercurial best efforts of Nathan Hrovat (37 disposals, 14 clearances, two goals), total collaboration saw Shepparton through handily.
Having 53 more kicks than the opposition never hurts, but more remarkable is the just over three-to-one ratio of kicks to handballs employed by Ted Lindon’s side.
The reliance by foot accounted for Shepparton’s huge advantage inside the arc, not to mention more than doubling its opposition for total entries (62-30).
Lindon, Jonty Wardle and Mitchell Brett combined for a whopping 41 marks as their side commandingly won the category overall (126-77).
All the while, when the ball actually was live and there to be won, Liam Duguid’s efforts around the ball were nothing short of relentless with at least one entry in all seven pressure statistic.
For reference, he was also the only player to even register in five of those seven categories, let alone get a sniff of the whole set.
It’s far beyond a matter of containing one or two key influencers to gain a foothold over Shepparton at this point; it will take all 22 opponents on the day stepping up in order to halt this outfit in September.
The News will be running a live blog across Saturday afternoon’s action as the Goulburn Valley and Murray leagues wrap up their home and away seasons, so stay tuned to The News’ Sport website for updates during the day.
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