Wodonga Raiders' Hayden Clarke stars, while Jydon Neagle nabs five goals

Clarke had 40-plus touches and capped it off with a late goal as Raiders restricted the home side to only one major after half-time in the 14.17 (101) to 5.10 (40) win.

In front of the biggest Anzac Day crowd in years of 2100, Clarke and Jydon Neagle featured with the latter kicking five goals on a day where no other player had more than two.

"He's got himself in really good condition, the way he moves across the ground, he breaks the game open, he's been fantastic," coach Jarrod Hodgkin said of Clarke, who only turned 21 last month.

The son of Raiders' premiership player and league Hall of Famer Stephen, Clarke says the reason for his breakout form this year is simple.

"It's probably the fittest I've been in the last five years, I've had a big pre-season, I'm not living in Wodonga at the moment, my brother Dylan and I are in Melbourne, we're training with Heidelberg and they train pretty hard," he offered of his improvement.

It's uncanny how many times the brothers receive a pass off each other in a game.

"When it comes down to it, we've played together our whole lives, you can read into what it is, but we work hard and get in the right positions," he explained.

Raiders carried a three-goal break to half-time and could have wrapped up the match early in the third, but kicked nine straight behinds.

It took the class of Neagle to break the drought, landing the only two goals of the quarter.

It was the three-time best and fairest's first game for the club since the 2018 preliminary final.

Apart from that duo, Dylan Clarke was also busy, lightly built Tom Bracher had a blinding first quarter, while Shane Munro was strong in defence, although he had his left calf iced after the game.

ALSO IN SPORT:

In his first senior Anzac Day game, Wodonga's 17-year-old schoolboy Josh Mathey excelled, clocking up 28 touches, Josh Clayton was also effective with 23, while Tom Johnson battled hard.

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