He picked up a whopping shiner but North Melbourne ruckman Todd Goldstein shone brighter than everyone as he racked up record AFL hitout numbers in his team’s 56-point pasting of an understrength Greater Western Sydney.
Goldstein piled up 80 hitouts on Saturday, 10 more than the record set by the Dockers’ Aaron Sandilands against Gold Coast earlier this season and it is believed he also set a record mark for hitouts to advantage.
The Giants reduced a 40-point second-quarter deficit to 23 by the final change at Spotless Stadium but North kicked 5.4 to 0.1 in the last term for an 18.9 (117) to 8.13 (61) win.
Up against third-choice Giants ruckman Rory Lobb, playing just his third senior game, Goldstein helped the visitors to a massive 89-23 advantage in the hitouts and a 20-4 win in centre clearances.
The competition’s in-form ruckman did all that despite copping a couple of facial knocks.
“He copped a really heavy knock early in the game too and his eye has got quite a bad shiner and he had to get some stitches,” Kangaroos interim coach Darren Crocker said.
Robin Nahas kicked four goals and Jarrad Waite and Jamie Macmillan each booted three for the Kangaroos, who slammed on the first five goals of the game inside 17 minutes.
The win improved North’s record to 6-6 and Crocker felt his team was building going into to the second half of their campaign.
“We haven’t had a great record going into the break in previous years, so it’s nice to get the win,” Crocker said.
“Now the guys can go away, freshen up, have next week off and relaunch in the second half of the year.
Another plus was the sparkling return of veteran midfielder Nick Dal Santo, with a game high 34 touches in his first match after a long layoff with a hamstring injury.
“To get himself into the shape where he can come in and perform that way is a credit to him and just shows how much we’ve missed him,” Crocker said.
Kangaroos forward Drew Petrie needed stitches after colliding with teammate Scott Thompson in the warm-up, while Robbie Tarrant jarred a thumb.
GWS lost a sixth player in the week leading up to the game when Tom Scully withdrew due to illness.
Giants coach Leon Cameron stressed the midfielders rather than Lobb had to shoulder a lot of the responsibility for some of their ugly statistics.
“I thought our mids needed to be better, I thought Rory fought tooth and nail,” Cameron said.
He pointed out North averaged over twice as many games per player as his side and was happy with the efforts of debutants Jack Steele and Caleb Marchbank.
He lamented the fact North kicked a couple of early goals in each of the first three quarters.
“For most of the game up until three-quarter time, other than the starts of quarters, I thought our intensity was terrific,” Cameron said.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.
Good bloke areas from the Bulldogs star!
A horror moment from the Giants veteran!
Not sure Finn Callaghan knew about this rule!
Apart from one five-goal game, GWS forward Toby Greene has only kicked six goals from the other eight games. He's traditionally had success against the Western Bulldogs.
Bayley Fritsch should become an even more important player from a structural perspective, given key forward Jacob van Rooyen will be unavailable due to concussion.
For the last few weeks, there has been a rumbling in the air around Victoria. Everyone has sensed it, but most have been able…
