Lockington-Bamawm United kept a chance at a finals berth on the table after roaring back after a slow start in the wet to conquer arch-rival Leitchville-Gunbower.

Hosting the Bombers at Lockington Recreation Reserve for round 15 of Heathcote District Football League, the Cats had the foresight to play around tricky conditions.

However, that didn’t go to plan in the first quarter, being outscored 2.4 to 1.2 to trail by eight at the first turn.

“It was a shocking day for footy, it was genuinely one of those days when good teams can get upset, everyone comes back down to a level playing field,” LBU coach Jayden Howe said.

“It’s always good to get a day like that and we identified on Thursday night at training that there was a good chance it’d be wet, so we trained a bit for it.

“We had the mindset of what we wanted to do in the first quarter, but the ball was slippery and we hadn’t adjusted enough and tried to play too pretty.

“To Leitchville-Gunbower’s credit, they capitalised on our mistakes in the first quarter.”

Following a realignment of the style they wanted to play at quarter-time, the Cats got it rolling in the second period, nailing five majors and holding the Bombers to no score.

LBU kept the good times rolling in the second period, adding a trio of majors to the tally, while L-G got back on the horse with a pair of its own.

As the oval continued to deteriorate into a muddy mire, the Cats ran away with the victory down the stretch, booting four goals to ice the match, with the Bombers only able to scrape through two behinds.

Howe credited the turnaround to a couple of key contributors in Matt Butler up front and Tyler Phillips in the middle, who combined to give Butler a bag of five for the match.

“Matt Butler has been pivotal to our games every week since he’s been fit, for someone who has missed a lot of football through injury to put up six to 10 scoring shots a game is beneficial for us,” he said.

“What he allows us to do is get the reward for the hard work that others are doing, he still has to kick the goals and present when the time comes, but it’s the team effort that gets it there off his boot.

“If you look at the last few league medals most of them have been Tyler Phillips and Jobee Warde, they’ve both got two league medals each, so when they go up against each other, you know they’ll be on the whole game.

“It’s exciting to watch and it’s gruelling, so when Tyler got on top of Jobee with the footy, we were very fortunate to have him on our side, he was pivotal.”

Looking ahead to the last three games of the season, LBU will have to at least triumph over Elmore in round 16 and White Hills to have a chance to play finals, with a big encounter with North Bendigo throwing a spanner in the works.

“We would definitely like to finish minimum 2-1 the rest of the way, White Hills and Elmore are winnable games for us, but North Bendigo did rough us up last time we faced them,” Howe said.

“Regardless, we will fight right through until the final game and the result will be what it will be.”

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Saturday, 15th July 2023

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