The top of the table clash was a fizzer as a rampant Albury hammered a severely weakened Wangaratta by 97 points on Saturday.
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The premiers were missing 10 players in the grand final re-match and it could easily have been a three-figure hiding with only inaccuracy saving the home team in the 21.23 (149) to 8.4 (52) result.
“Our pressure was really good, all over the ground, in the backs, forwards and mids,” Tigers’ co-coach Shaun Daly said.
“I thought that pressure got us back a lot of football in turnovers and regardless of who played, I thought our effort was really good.”
Some of the Pies’ youngsters will have nightmares after the Tigers launched themselves in what was their last game against a top five team for two months.
Chris Hyde was best on ground with 39 disposals, including 15 in the second quarter, kicking an equal game-high five goals.
Fellow veterans Daly (31), Dean Polo (29) and Charles Gaylard (29 and four goals) tormented the out-gunned Pies.
But what will worry opposition sides is that youngsters like Jake Gaynor and Jessy Wilson are also having an impact, so it’s certainly not just a case of stopping the profile players as it once was.
One of the Tigers’ few off-season recruits also had his best game.
“I thought Dean Heta was really good in the ruck, we put it on him and he gave us first use in there,” Daly said.
Debutant and fellow ruckman Ben Kelly also kicked two goals.
Wangaratta was already missing a third of its best side after selection on Thursday night but then lost Did Simpson medallist Michael Newton, VFL big man Jade Cleeland and composed defender Ben Douthie, while Tigers’ star Daniel Cross didn’t play.
After a couple of early misses, it took Albury five minutes to grab the first goal through Dean Polo and when the visitors kicked three goals in the final minutes, the match was over.
Elliott Powell landed one of those and after a slow start to the season with injury, he’s back to his damaging best.
The only negative was when Brayden O’Hara appeared to suffer a ‘stinger’ near his shoulder when he collided with a team-mate in picking up the ball, although he did finish the match.
It’s impossible to read anything into the Pies’ performance, simply because they were so decimated.
Mat Grossman kicked five goals, but he’s now overseas.