IT’S a good thing Barry Hall has learnt to control his temper or things could have turned ugly at the W.J. Findlay Oval yesterday.
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The big man wasn’t given a moment’s peace from the moment he entered the cauldron.
Hall was swamped by television crews on the ground looking for a final word only minutes before the first bounce and seconds later had Yarrawonga defender Matt Shannon doing his best to upset him in the goal square.
It got worse.
Hall’s first attempt at a mark resulted in a full-on “falcon” on the Norm Minns Oval side of the ground and the former Sydney Swans and Western Bulldogs player gave away a free kick a couple of minutes later.
You could see his blood starting to boil when a teammate ignored a lead and missed the shot and things worsened when the former AFL bad boy spilt a chest mark.
With Marcus McMillan dropping into the space in front of him, the ‘Bazza’ of yesteryear would have had a target on his back by now.
Brendan Fevola already had one goal in the bank at this stage and the 6000-crowd wanted something special from the player who finished his career at the end of last season.
At the 12-minute-mark, Hall took his first mark and wheeled around for a shot only to see it skid along the ground and be cut off by a Pigeons defender.
Oh dear, he was mad by now.
Drew Barnes was getting under his skin and something had to give one way or the other.
Then, after 22 long minutes, Hall’s anguish was over when he found himself on the end of a bullet pass from Toby Ryan and cooly slotted through his first goal in a brown and gold jumper from 35 metres out.
While he was rusty, Hall started to work his way into the match with several hit-up leads and shots on goal that narrowly missed.
Hall had the Rovers’ one and only goal by half-time and the crowd was given what it was waiting for midway through the third term when he marked, ran around his opponent and kicked truly to level the scores at 31 each.
The roar was almost as deafening when Karl Norman was sent off for striking Brandon Symes in the final quarter as tempers started to erupt between supporters.
Hall finished with four of Wangaratta Rovers’ seven goals to match the deeds of Fevola at the other end of the ground and earn a pass mark from the Hawk faithful.
“I was pretty rusty, I think that goes without saying,” Hall said.
“I rolled my ankle five minutes into the game so I knew I was in for a bad day.
“I didn’t run a hell of a lot for those reasons.
“I have been trying to keep reasonably fit mainly for injury purposes as I didn’t want to go out and do a soft tissue injury.
“The day got better but unfortunately we fell short.”
Hall will make his next appearance for the Rovers against rivals Wangaratta on July 29.