Moe's 10-goal burst against Leongatha decides favouritism

THE other contenders in the Gippsland League; Warragul, Wonthaggi, Leongatha and possibly Traralgon are playing for second place this year if Moe’s performance against Leongatha at Traralgon on Saturday is anything to go by.

In a dominant second quarter, in particular, the Lions had all guns blazing, including Melbourne premiership player James Harmes out of the centre, despite the best efforts of Leongatha’s Kim Drew. And together with midfielders Blake Mullane and Trent Baldi and a squadron of fleet-footed wingers and flankers including Scott Van Dyk, Nathan Scagliarini, Alex Dijkstra and Jacob Wood, they dominated the Parrots in all aspects.

With their forwards also firing, especially Myles Poholke (5) and Riley D’Arcy (3) also with Harmes chipping in with four, they put on 10.1 to Leongatha’s 5.3 to be leading by 42 points at half time, before the rain came, and the heat went out of the contest.

They had good defenders too, including Declan Keilty and applied pressure on the Parrots' ball carriers front and back, but the Parrots’ forwards missed shots that might have stemmed the Moe tide.

Both teams kicked five goals after half time as Leongatha restricted the winning margin to 46 points in commendable style, but Moe was impressive all over the ground and stamped themselves as “the team to beat” in 2026.

Leongatha still has the likes of Luke Bowman and Justin Pellicano to come back, and during the week last week, they heard the welcome news that Essendon champ, and Leongatha premiership player Dyson Heppell intends to finish his season “with the mighty Leongatha Parrots” this year.

So, that should make a big difference.

And on the statistics, at least, Leongatha wasn’t all that far away on the day, except in the second quarter, when Moe had three bursts of unanswered goals in an impressive display.

But, if ever Moe was going to break its (59-year) premiership drought, this year is it!

Here’s how the league’s statistician Paul Carter summed up the contest.

“The clearances were very even right throughout the day, but Moe just edged ahead 43-42. On centre clearances, Moe won that 16-13. Free kicks were 65 all up for the day - 36 to Leongatha and 29 to Moe. Moe led the marks 52-45 and the contested marks went Moe's ways 8-4.

“Marks inside 50 were 13 to 8 Moe's way, and both teams had seven intercept marks.

“Moe kicked eight goals four points from set shots. Leongatha kicked six goals three. Moe's score came 10.5 from turnovers, 6.2 from stoppages, and 3 goals from the centre bounce. Leongatha kicked 8.8 from turnover, one behind from stoppages and 2.1 from centre breaks.

“In the battle of the ruckman, Jack Sheridan emerged ahead there with 37 hit outs for the day up against Chris Prowse 25 and Nick Prowse 9, and six to Riley D’Arcy. Sam Bradley also chimed in for Leongatha with four.

“Of the players we were following for Moe, we had James Harmes on 32 disposals, which were 22 kicks, 10 handballs, two marks, 11 clearances, six inside 50s and four goals. We also had Trent Baldy up there as well, with 26 kicks, three handballs, one mark and 15 clearances, six inside 50s for 29 disposals, Nathan Scagliarini 20, Blake Mullane 22, and Scott Van Dyke 16. For Leongatha, in a big last quarter, Tom Marriott threw everything into that last quarter and had 11 disposals in that term for 27 for the match, and he was backed up by Ben Harding with 21, Aaron Heppell 20, Kim Drew 19 and Cade Maskell 13.”

Final scores: Moe 19.8.122 to Leongatha 11.10.76.