Missing two weeks of football with a bye and league-wide postponement due to a COVID-19 lockdown, the Timbercutters came out and did exactly what it needed to to take down one of the league's best sides.
And in the face of less-than-ideal preparations, senior coach Darcy Robinson was delighted with his side's efforts in round 10.
“To get everything back to some normality, to have this unexpected spike of COVID again, it was tough,” he said.
“Guys minds can think ‘here we go again’ and if we are in lockdown are we going to see football again, so to have the group respond like they did was great.
“We said, we need to keep moving forward and progressing.
“We go over the last two weeks, having beaten Strathmerton and just backing up our performance after having a really up-in-the-air two weeks.
“Then still not being at full-strength and to come away with the win, it’s fantastic.”
The opening quarter at Mathoura Recreation Reserve was a scrappy affair, as both sides tried to find their footing after some time away from the football field.
But it was the Timbercutters who capitalised early, kicking three unanswered goals to build an 18-point lead by the first break.
“Both sides were trying to work each other out for the first quarter and a bit,” Robinson said.
“We spoke about once that physicality comes out of the first quarter, the game will start to open up and we’ll be allowed to play the style of footy we want to play and try and stop Katamatite controlling the game.”
And Mathoura did just that for much of the second and third quarters to set up a favourable four-goal buffer ahead of the final stanza.
There it got tense, as the Timbercutters’ Achilles heel - running out four quarters - showed itself, as the Tigers banged home an unanswered 3.3 before falling short of a winning comeback.
Despite the fadeaway, Robinson wasn't too concerned by his team's finish.
“When we knocked off Strathmerton, we came away and had a review and still had a fair few things to work on,” Robinson said.
“Yesterday (Saturday) we beat top-of-the-table Katamatite, and we still have so much to work on.
“We are getting three quarters of footy. Katty kicked a few late which bought it right back.
“They are things we need to work on, consistently playing four quarter of footy, and when we can do that, we are going to be a very good football side.”
Trying to nullify a deep Katamatite midfield for most of the day, one of the biggest keys to Mathoura's success came in the form of Jacob Keenan.
“He sort of plays a lockdown role,” Robinson said.
“We highlighted Sam Poole as one of Katamatite’s main key midfielders and Keenan went to him and did a fantastic job. I think Poole’s stats for the day were four kicks and two handballs.”
With this weekend's opponent still to be confirmed as the league juggles the fixture, Robinson said his squad would work hard to continue its winning streak against whatever team that is.
“We’ve got some sore boys from yesterday, obviously having two weeks off it was like a mini-break,” he said.
“We’ll do the right things with recovery, we’ll have a review session tonight, then train Tuesday and Thursday and I guess whoever we get come Saturday, we’ll just prepare well for them.
“It’s all we can really do.”
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