Shepparton United coach Duane Hueston has been drilling instructions into his Demons contingent all season long and on Saturday the boys came good.
United was clean in skill execution as it toppled Benalla by 37 points at Deakin Reserve, leaving Hueston chuffed with the first set of four points since mid-June.
“We implemented a few things at training in the week and they executed it perfectly,” Hueston said.
“We were really happy with our ability to feed the ball back out of the contest which was an area of concern the week before, we just weren’t doing it ― so that was a massive tick.
“Then the way our backline structured up every time we had the ball in our hands, it was really impressive to see. They were awesome, it was really good to watch.”
Easy on the eye from go to woah, United took a 10-point buffer into quarter-time and slotted a further three goals to Benalla’s two in the second term.
As Hueston would likely concede, the Demons have been in similar positions before and have spurned those opportunities, but there was a different air to how the hosts were playing during the penultimate round.
United’s third quarter was the key indicator.
Storming out of the rooms after the main break, a 5.0 effort created enough scoreboard pressure for the hosts to flourish and a further three goals in the final quarter rounded out a 13.5 (83) to 6.10 (46) result.
“As I said to the boys, it’s going to take time. It started to happen a little bit, it sort of clicked,” Hueston said.
“A lot of people said our delivery, our skills are still not up to standard, but as I said to our coaching group, I didn’t notice.
“I was focusing on how we were structuring up, we had our runners coming from behind and feeding it back and we were doing it really well.”
The decision to send Liam Serra to a half-back post for the first time paid dividends as his speed and carry was on show for everyone to witness, while Mitch Roche and Mitch Trevaskis also caught the eye of Hueston.
Lewis Stanton kicked five majors for United, while Benalla was best served by Jordan Wolff and Christopher Welsh.
And though it’s been a tough season results-wise for United, there is a silver lining.
The Demons were flat bottom before Saturday’s clash, but now a win against 10th-placed Rochester in the final game could lift the side as high as ninth on the table.
Hueston acknowledged this, saying a repeat performance of the weekend is all he asks in round 18.
“You want to finish the year on a high note and I’m sure Rochester is thinking the same thing,” he said.
“I just hope that we can make sure our performance is the same as this week and start getting consistency rather than maybe having a good game and then dropping away.”
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