Sunshine sent a warning to the rest of the Western Region Football League at the weekend.
The Kangaroos’ best is good enough to beat anyone – just ask last year’s division 1 runners-up Werribee Districts.
Sunshine smashed Werribee by 57 points at Kinder Smith Reserve.
The 16.11 (107) – 7.8 (50) win was set up by a blistering first quarter in which Sunshine booted eight goals, with Declan Moloney and Matthew Stocco dangerous targets up forward.
With the forward line working like a well-oiled machine, Sunshine’s defenders were doing their bit. The Kangaroos gave up just four goals across the first three quarters and had a 60-point lead at the final break.
Sunshine coach Brendan Hallinan credited his players with bringing outstanding effort to the contest.
“We put an emphasis on getting off to a good start during the week on the training track,” he said. “More importantly, we weren’t too far off playing our best football for four quarters.”
Moloney and Stocco finished the match with three goals each while around the ground, Daniel Castellano and Mitchell Ellis were among the best for the winners.
Sunshine had eight different goalkickers in the win including multiple majors from five players.
“It isn’t about one guy kicking six or seven goals – those days of footy are gone,” Hallinan said.
“We want multiple goalkickers. We want our big guys pushing forward and kicking goals, we want our half-backline players kicking goals. We don’t care where they come from.
“We have put a real team emphasis on collectively kicking goals and it was great we were able to do that.”
For Sunshine, the win completes a remarkable turnaround.
In its second-round clash against Albion, the Kangaroos were trailing and looked to be staring down the barrel of a 0-2 start to the year but pulled out a gutsy victory.
Now with the weekend’s victory over Werribee Districts, Sunshine has a 2-1 win-loss record and is one of the form sides of the competition.
Hallinan said Sunshine was putting a lot of emphasis on playing team football.
“We were very confident that if we just stuck to our structures, which is something we have had to do a lot of work on, everything would take care of itself,” he said.
“It was great to finish that game against Albion strongly and then carry it into the Werribee match.”
The Kangaroos have the bye this week. Their next match will be against St Albans in round five.
