Tara Murray
Sunshine Heights got some reward for effort as it got its second win of the Western Football League division 2 season on Saturday.
The Dragons faced a confident Western Rams line up, coming off its first win in more than six years.
The Rams led at half time before the Dragons started to get into the game.
They kicked eight goals to four in the second half to come away with a, 12.13 (85)-10.4 (64) win.
Dragons coach Stephen O’Malley said they were aware that the Rams would be up for the challenge.
“The last two weeks we’ve been pretty close, but they had that winning momentum,” he said.
“We didn’t take them lightly and took each quarter as it went. That’s how we approached it.
“We looked to put our best foot forward.”
O’Malley said the conditions weren’t the best at Ainsworth Reserve which resulted in a lot of fumbling.
He said they weren’t happy with where they were at the main break.
“In the first half our pressure was down a bit,” he said. “We spoke about that at half time and the boys came out after half time and lifted.
“We’ve worked hard at training and off the field away from training and we were able to get some reward and there were some smiles around the club.”
Skipper James Vella kicked four goals and was named best on ground.
O’Malley said Elliot Rosado and Kyall Parker were other standouts.
He said getting Parker back from Keilor Park early in the season had really straightened up their forward line.
The win moves the Dragons to 11th on the ladder.
O’Malley said they wanted to use that result to launch the back part of their season. This week the Dragons face Braybrook.
“We’ll work on getting some more wins,” he said. “We’ll take each game as it comes.
“We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We’ve improved our fitness and the boys have worked on the structure and we understand it now,
“They’ve come together as a group, we knew that it would always take some time.
“We can see the improvement each week and it finally paid off on the weekend.”
In other results, Braybrook beat North Sunshine, 25.30 (180)-2.3 (15), Sunshine was too good for Albanvale, 23.13 (151)-7.5 (47) and Albion remains undefeated after beating West Footscray, 28.22 (190)-10.3 (63).
In division 1, Caroline Springs beat Hoppers Crossing.
