A likely season-ending injury to star recruit Ryan Crowley capped off a disappointing day as the Collie Eagles slumped to its third straight defeat on Sunday.
Crowley suffered a broken collarbone and a suspected broken arm early in the second quarter of the Eagles’ 44 point loss to South Bunbury at the Collie Recreation Ground.
The match started competitively in the first quarter with the Eagles defenders holding strong against the flow of forward 50 entries from the South Bunbury midfield.
Eagle Mat Michael was particularly strong and took several big marks to keep the Tigers from hitting the scoreboard.
It took about 10 minutes for the game to see its first goal when Guy Piggott ran into an open goal to give the Tigers the lead.
With the first goal on the board, the game opened up and Teke Vernon got the Eagles’ first goal minutes later before Sayln Stein responded with another major to give the Tigers a nine point lead at quarter time.
It didn’t take long for South Bunbury to push the margin out further as the league’s leading goal kicker Leigh Kohlmann kicked his first of the day within minutes of the game resuming.
Collie took control of the game after Kohlmann’s goal and moved the ball quickly around the ground, but couldn’t put on scoreboard pressure.
With the ball being contested in front of goal, Crowley received a big bump but was able to keep in the play until first-gamer Peter Burbridge snapped a goal.
With the Eagles failing to capitalise on their good play, the Tigers were able to turn the game with two more goals, courtesy of Kade Wallrodt and Kohlmann.
Aaron Elari pegged one back for the Eagles not long after but it meant little as South Bunbury’s Sam Graham kicked a goal after the siren to give the Tigers a 17 point lead at half time.
Collie looked like a different team after the half time break and quick goals to Jesse Ramshaw and Bailey Moloney brought the margin back to just four points.
However Collie couldn’t get ahead and when the intensity dropped off, South Bunbury capitalised and kicked five of the next six goals, including two more for Kohlmann, to push the margin back out to 27 points at three-quarter time.
With the Eagles needing to lift in the final quarter to pull off an unlikely win, it was much of the same as South Bunbury were able to find loose players in space around the ground.
The Tigers kept Collie to just one goal in the final term while kicking four of their own to claim the 7.12 (54) to 15.8 (98) win.
Kade Wallrodt was recognised after the game with the Belt-Up best on ground award for his perfomance in the Tigers’ midfield.
Eagles coach Seth White said it was a disappointing showing from the team.
“[South Bunbury] were really good. They came prepared as most teams do and we seem – for some reason – to not,” he said.
“Work rate and skill errors really let us down again. We have to work on those things at training – our skills need to go up a lot.
“We have to stay true to what we were doing and work a bit harder.”
White said there were many positives to take from the game despite the result.
“Paul Rinder in the ruck was really good and [Aaron] Elari was good around the ground,” he said.
“Our two backs, Corey Gulvin and Teale De’Angelis, did really good. They had big jobs on Kohlmann and Piggott and I thought they were pretty handy.”
The loss saw the Eagles slip to ninth on the ladder, sliding from top spot over the space of three weeks.
White said the team was looking forward to redeeming itself on Saturday against Carey Park in the Indigenous Recognition game.
“We’ve lost three in a row now and when you have a loss, you want the next game to come as quick as possible,” he said.
“Carey Park are flying at the minute. Their coach [Richard] Barnard has got them up and about.
“It’ll be a real hard challenge but we’ll go there and have a crack.”
