THE good judges expected a ding-dong battle between Sale and Wonthaggi up at Sale on Saturday and that’s exactly what the crowd was getting up until half time with Wonthaggi holding a slender eight point lead at the long break.
But complicating the issue for Wonthaggi was the hamstring injury to Troy Harley, in the last contest of the half.
Harley had been playing a key role for the Power, pinch-hitting in the ruck and also going forward at one stage to kick a nice running goal half-way through the second quarter.
He looked to be a real loss for Wonthaggi at that stage.
Sale was being led out of the centre in fine style by the mercurial Shannen Lange, one of those rare players, like Scott Pendlebury, who is able to find time and space while mere mortals are floundering around at a different level.
With a number of options up forward including Kane Martin and Jordan Dessent they were giving as good as they were getting, also with the likes of Jack McLaren, Jayden Allison and Adam Wallace providing plenty of drive.
The Power coach Jarryd Blair was leading from the front, in and under the packs and linking up or creating attacking moves while Cooper McInnes, Jack Hutchinson and Noah Anderson were among those working hard to make it count up forward
Anderson kicked the opening goal of the third quarter to stretch the lead to 14 points.
Brodie Mabilia won the next centre break and McInnes pounced on it, handpassed to Aiden Lindsay who hit up Josh Bates taking a gutsy contested mark before being cleaned up by his Sale opponent.
He got up, dusted himself off and went back to kick the next goal.
Moments later Lachie Jones found Jack Hutchinson in the goal square and Wonthaggi had kicked away to their biggest lead of the day.
Isaac Chugg was on the end of the next centre break win by Wonthaggi and barreled one through from 50 for a decisive lead.
And mid-way through the quarter Noah Anderson marked, turned and ran clear into the open goal to make the lead almost seven goals by the last change.
Wonthaggi 12.3.75 to Sale 5.6.36.at the last change.
Jarryd Blair was delighted that Wonthaggi had been able to break clear with one of their best quarters of the year and where Sale's onballers had kept it tight in the first half, Blair singled out Aiden Lindsay and Tom Murray in particular for providing much of the drive in the third quarter which set up the scoring blitz, five goals to Sale's nil. But equally the Power defenders were instrumental, including Jakeb Thomas, Kyle Reid, Josh Schultz, Jordan Staley and Tim Knowles among them.
Sale's belated response got going immediately after the restart, a busy Patrick Tainsh passing to Shannen Lange who was made to earn his overhead mark. The added attention to Sale's best player resulted in a brief melee of players, Lange was awarded a 50-metre penalty and started a run of Sale goals that put some respectability into the respective scores, without ever being a threat to the outcome.
Harry Ronchi marked and scored Sale's next, igniting the rowdy Magpie fans in the social rooms and the Power defenders were under more pressure, with the likes of Lachie Jones, Josh Schulz and Kyle Reid among those meeting the challenge. Tim Knowles and Jordan Staley were others.
Against the run of play, Tom Davey made the most of a mark on the angle, from about 35 metres out, and pulled one back for Wonthaggi.
In the run to the line, Sale was peppering the scoring zone with Jack Leslie scoring a couple, Kane Martin missing an easy set shot and Jordan Dessent finishing off with one right on the siren.
In the end, Sale only went down by 13 points and in fact had more scoring shots than Wonthaggi on the day.
A philosophical Power coach Jarryd Blair said Sale would likely trouble a lot of teams in final five rounds and would remain a formidable opponent during the finals.
"It just proves you can't be at your optimum all the time, and Sale has a lot of quality players out there, said Blair.
"You've just got to keep turning up to get the job done."
He said the team had to pleased to come away and have a win like that against good opposition, despite something of a last quarter fade out after a particularly physical match.
Final scores: Wonthaggi 13.4.82 defeated Sale 10.9.69.
