Ballarat embarrassed by high quality Hampden

THE only word to describe Ballarat’s performance against Hampden is disastrous.
Their 2019 Worksafe Community Championship hit out resulted in a shock 74-point loss that was highlighted by a complete lack of effort from the playing group as the Hampden Bottle Greens recorded their third straight victory in Interleague footy under superstar coach Jonathan Brown.
With no Darley, Sebastopol or Ballarat players selected in the final 23 for the BFNL a somewhat second-string Interleague side line-up against a fully fit Hampden team who were hungry to claim another rep scalp.
A six goal to zero opening term was just the start of things to come for the Ballarat side as the small forwards from Hampden continued to find too much space inside 50 and were able to kick goal after goal.
The standouts for Ballarat were both Sunbury players in Grant Valles and Jack Landt.
Valles was strong in defence and particularly in the second half he was important in stemming some of the bleeding, while Landt weaved and dodged the immense tackling pressure time and time again as well as booting without a shadow of a doubt the goal of the day.
Port Fairy’s, Kaine Merchovich, was awarded best on ground for his 30 plus disposal game while his Seagull’s teammate, Tom Sullivan, was super impressive with three crumbing goals stretching the flimsy Ballarat defence.
Questions around the importance of Interleague will be brought to the forefront with a lacklustre turn out to Mars Stadium on Saturday.
The loss means that the Ballarat Football Netball League drops out of the top 10 in the Championship rankings for the first time after remarkably nearly being as high as two four years ago when the rankings were introduced.
This year, the BFNL tried something new with the Under 19’s interleague with the best of the Eastern bloc of the league taking on the best of the Western bloc and may just be the future path the league needs to take.

Hampden FNL 20.15 (135)
Ballarat FNL 8.13 (61)
Goals – Hampden – J Korewha 4, T Sullivan 3, J Turland 3, A Wines 2, K Mercovich 2, S
Cowling 2, R Arnold 1, J Bell 1, T Couch 1, D Nicholson 1
Ballarat – J Johnston 2, A Willitts 2, L Carter 1, L George 1, B Kight 1, J Landt 1
Best – Hampden – K Mercovich, T Sullivan, B Dobson, J Hausler, T Couch, A Pulling
Ballaray – G Valles, J Landt, M Conn, L Watkins, L Bramble, B Edwards
Hampden Best on Ground – Kaine Mercovich (Port Fairy)
Ballarat Best on Ground – Grant Valles (Sunbury)
UNDER 19s
Ballarat East 10.9 (69)
Ballarat West 4.7 (31)
Goals – Ballarat East – B Landt 3, J Whitehead 2, A Azzopardi 2, B Colley 1, J Cadman
1, R Porter 1
Ballarat West – M Judd 2, F Loader 1, L Phillips 1
Best – Ballarat East – J Cadman, B Colley, L Goater, B McMahon, J Bewley, B Landt
Ballarat West – L Phillips, L Prendergast, E Lamb, J Lohmann, I Pertzel, M Aikman
Ballarat East Best on Ground – Blake Colley (Darley)
Ballarat Best on Ground – Liam Phillips (Redan)