Lights out: Hawks spoil Beechworth's big night

KIEWA-Sandy Creek spoiled Beechworth’s big night last week in defensive masterclasses on the field and the court. In the club’s historic first home night game at Baarmutha Park in front five of the club’s premiership teams of yester year, the Bushrangers senior football side was left goalless in the second and third quarters to go down 3.6 (24) to 10.15 (75) In the A grade, the Bushrangers kept pace with the Hawks in the first half but a 30-5 second half blew the game open to see Beechworth lose by 35 goals. Coby Surrey played her 300th senior match in the B grade while husband Brenton received a surprise life membership with the TDFL in what was a huge occasion for the Surrey family. Under the bright new lights the Hawks had control of the Bushrangers for most of the night in the seniors as the Bushrangers succumbed to the heat in the 51-point loss. Coach Jack Neil said the Hawks were too slick for his men and were the clear in-form team of the competition. “It’s a good learning for our group, we need to be really committed to our game plan if we want to execute it against good teams,” he said. “We went away from things that were working for us pretty quickly and learned that lesson on how good teams slow you down and stop you and if you’re not disciplined, they’ll continue to find you out. “Our guys defended well considering how many inside 50s they had, but those good teams require some more consistent footy or you can be showed up a fair bit.” The regular suspects were big again for the Bushrangers as Degan Dolny, Kayde Surrey and Tristan Lenaz did their best down back while Brenton Surrey, Cam Fendyk and Tom Cartledge toiled away in the midfield. In a low scoring bout, Connor Newnham’s five goals came with great value for the Hawks while Jamie Paul was also damaging up forward and in the midfield. Beechworth's Ovens and King League 1982 and 1993 reserves premierships and 2000-01 senior premierships along with the club’s 2010 senior flag were among the reunions gathered sharing stories throughout the evening. Neil said it was great for the community to be around those generations of success. “It was good for our supporters to be able to bring them all together again and the community really enjoyed that,” he said. “It was great for those families who have been around for a while to see those people come back.” There will be a league wide bye this weekend while Rutherglen and Wahgunyah face off in the annual Good Friday match at Barkly Park. While Beechworth would be happy to have two wins from their first three games in a tough draw, the competition looks to be red-hot with the likes of Barnawartha and Tallangatta causing big upsets against last year's grand finalists Chiltern and Yackandandah respectively. Neil said the improvement of teams league wide meant his side couldn’t take anything for granted going forward. “We need to try and get the list fit and healthy each week and just try and take away little things,” he said. “We’ve got a few things we want to work on, in particular our forward end over the next couple of weeks.”

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