It was the moment Wyndham Suns came of age as a football club in the Western Region Football League: the minutes after the Suns belted out the club’s theme song, marking a 41-point win over top-ranked Parkside at Henry Turner Reserve in division 3 on Saturday.
Not even nine goals from Parkside spearhead Jason Cloke could stop the Suns.
This Suns team is not only a finals contender, but can now be talked about as a genuine premiership threat. It was a result that opened the eyes of Suns coach Michael Boothey to what his side is capable of.
“Any away game, it’s always going to be hard, but when you’re playing the top side, it’s even more so because they don’t want to lose at home and they rarely do,” he said. “To go there and actually win, and win well, was fantastic.”
The maturity of Wyndham could be found after they had roared ‘red, yellow and black’ to the same tune as the Richmond theme song.
The giant-killing task of beating Parkside was over, the next challenge awaits and this was no time to dine out on past glories, albeit one that was barely out of the rear-vision mirror.
Boothey got the players together, told them not to get ahead of themselves and to start focusing on their next task – against Sunshine Heights in seven days’ time.
If there is one team the Suns could ill afford to drop their guard against, it is the Heights.
Boothey is a process-driven coach and it seems to be catching on with his players, but let’s see how they handle a blockbuster game against a bruising opponent in the Heights, who will go to Goddard Street Reserve hell-bent on knocking them down a peg.
“We focus on every single quarter – don’t get ahead of ourselves,” Boothey said. “Every week, we just want to keep on improving.”
Wyndham dominated the midfield battle against Parkside.
Hayden Iannacone was at his silky best, but only after Rhys Bucktin had crashed and bashed to create a path. Bucktin’s move into the middle was a match-winner.
“This is probably the first week we actually dominated the midfield,” Boothey said.
“We’ve probably now got five or six mids that can go through there, which we didn’t have earlier on.”
Daniel Hovey was once again the forward target of choice for Wyndham. Hovey was part of a sideshow shoot-out with Cloke, kicking six majors. “That first quarter today, I made a comment that it could be like the Ablett and Salmon show back in 1993; it was unreal to watch,” Boothey said. “Hovey took a screamer in the first two minutes and it set the tone early and Cloke down the other end was marking everything and didn’t miss a beat.
“I think the whole crowd would’ve enjoyed that but, mind you, I was getting a bit worried when Parkside got closer.” Never fear, Wyndham won the day.
The Suns shut down most of Parkside’s avenues to goal not named Cloke and finished up resounding winners in a 19-goals-to-12 game.
“I can’t give our other defenders enough credit,” Boothey said.
“We locked down everywhere else, but their delivery to Cloke was fantastic, it was lace out and basically unstoppable.”
Wyndham, on the other hand, had numerous goal-scoring choices, including Rhys Kirk, who kicked four, and two each to Steven Neralic and Craig Richards.
