It was an exciting day at Gillon Oval on Saturday as Brunswick NOBSPC recorded their first home win of the season against local rival Therry Penola on Ladies Day.

The good size crowd in attendance was well and truly entertained by the NOBs’ play-on-at-all-costs brand of football – which got us out to a 31-point lead in the final quarter – while Therry kept on coming until the end to only lose by 8 points.

For the second week running we dominated the start of the game without totally capitalising, but it must be said a tricky wind did make kicking for goal difficult for both teams. Our defence, led by Chris Ford – who made many David Dench-like dashes down the ground – and Mick O’Donoghue were superb, with excellent contributors all over the field. It was especially pleasing to see Kyle Adams and Andrew Roberts back in the side and adding plenty of run

The second quarter was more even as Therry began to win the centre clearances, but the fact we had eight individual goal kickers at half-time reflected the fact that we were playing good team football in an open game.

The third term would prove to be pivotal as the previously free-flowing game became an arm wrestle with the respective defences on top, aided by both teams sending in long bombs to their forward lines. Then came a crucial passage of play with a series of passes sending the ball into the safe hands of Kyle Docherty and, he had done at Parade, Big Doc slotted the important major. It was the only one of the quarter and meant we took a 19-point lead into the final break.

Kicking the first two goals of the last term was also vital as we knew Therry would respond, which they did quickly through the classy Jarrod Bannister, as the game opened up again.

But our improvement from week-to-week was there to see as we continued to take the game on and kicked two more goals to make the task too great for Therry. Late goals to Therry narrowed the margin but it didn’t matter as we scored our best win for a couple of seasons.

There were many excellent players for NOBs with Ford best-on-ground. Big Doc was also huge, while the form of Todd Cleary and Gerrard Bence continues to be strong. Captain Lachlan Ezard was back to his best and Scott Galloway and Dan Mahoney were good all day.

We travel to Como Park to meet Old Geelong next week as we look to win three straight. Get on board the train!