Magpies yield to Garfield

DALYSTON blew their chances for victory on their home turf on Saturday allowing Garfield to build momentum at critical stages.

In a fast paced opening term both teams traded goals for the first fifteen minutes.

The Stars soon acclimatised and kicked the next four majors to have their hosts on the back foot and Dalyston struggled to play catch up from there on.

“We let them slip away in the last 10 minutes of the first quarter,” Dalyston’s football operations manager Stephen Howell said.

Garfield went into the second term 24-points ahead.

Dalyston upped its pressure in the second quarter and restricted Garfield, with both sides only scoring one goal apiece.

Ben Lewis performed admirably in Dalyston’s backline, along with Brady O’Toole, who played his best game in a few weeks.

Jake Barry had a job on Edward Morris, and his efforts earned him a spot on Dalyston’s best players’ list.

Dalyston came to life through the third quarter, kicking five goals and keeping Garfield to just three.

“We had a really good third quarter. Everything came together. We went back to basics and started to bring out what we’ve been working on at training,” Mr Howell said.

“We switched the play up a bit and it was working well. We just have to be able to do that for longer.”

Cale Love-Linay continued his string of great performances and Matthew Gundry was solid all day.

Mitch Hallahan was in and under everything and Hayden Wallis led by example in the forward line.

Garfield was back to form through the fourth quarter and managed to pull away to secure a 43-point win.

Although the result was not what the Magpies were looking for, the atmosphere at the Dalyston Recreation Reserve was still celebratory on Saturday.

Dalyston welcomed back its Reserves, A Grade, B Grade and Youth Girls teams celebrating their 10th premiership reunions.

Next weekend, Dalyston will be coming up against Inverloch-Kongwak.

“Inverloch-Kongwak is tracking well, but we just have to play four quarters of football and anything could happen,” Mr Howell said.

“It’s a work in progress for us. We just need to do a bit more work and finessing at training. The young boys are starting to find their feet a bit with a few more games under their belt.”