The Sunbury Lions have gotten off a strong start to the Ballarat Football League season as it looks to bank early wins.
With a six week period in the middle of the season with four games away and a bye, the Lions are keen to make the most of their matches at home.
After losing to Darley in its first match, the Lions have won their next three matches to be ahead of the ledger early on.
“We’re really happy with the start to the season,” coach Matt White said before the weekend’s match with Ballarat. “We could have got the job done against Darley to start the year.
“Darley at Darley is always hard. At home we’ve been great against Redan and North Ballarat on the weekend.
“Hopefully we can tame the old nemesis in Ballarat and make it 3-1.”
White said getting wins on the board early in the season was something they had focused on before heading away from Clarke Oval in the middle of the year.
The Lions form in the past two matches have impressed White, particularly the first half against North Ballarat in round three.
“We were 10.1 at half time,” he said. “The guys were slotting goals from 50 and then from 40 metres out in the rain.
“We’ve been happy with how the boys have come out. It was nice to get off to a good start.”
White said he had been thrilled with their off season recruits and how they had fitted into the line up.
He said the combination of Daniel Johnston joining Jake Sutton up forward was working well.
“We’ve had a spread of goalkickers in the forward line and the mids have been kicking goals,” he said.
“DJ is yet to hit a big bag yet but it’s to do with how we have designed it. Him and Jake are opening up the forward line and allowing the middle through to kick goals.
“Myles [Gollant] has been really good at centre half back. We’re not sure how his old club let him go.
“By luck his sister plays netball for us and he started to look at us.”
The Lions though have lost Cody Bramble for season after tearing his ACL.
White said they would look to get Bramble back around the group as soon as they can.
“He did a lot of work in the off season,” he said. “He trained with three different VFL [Victorian Football League] clubs and got on the Bulldogs list.
“He was primed for a big year. He was brilliant against Darley and had 14 or 15 disposals at half time against Redan.
“He was in some good form.”
The Lions were back in action on Saturday against Ballarat and had a big win, 19.11 (125)-8.7 (61).
Jake Egan and Jake Sutton kicked five goals each.
